
Glass 
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THE BOOMERANG 



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Boomerang 



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3v 
J.S.BARCI] 



Copyright, 1896 



! 






THE BOOMERANG 

OR 

BRYAN'S SPEECH 

WITH THE WIND 

KNOCKED OUT 



A Dialogue, including the Full Text of Bryan's Famous 

Madison Square Garden Speech, together with 

Complete Answers to Each Argument by 

Various Significant Characters 



BY 

JAMES S. BARCUS 

AUTHOR OF " SCIENCE OF SELLING" 









*<\VoU-^-\ 



NEW YORK 
J. S. BARCUS & CO. 

1896 



324 



Copyright, 1896, by 
J S. EARCUS 



PREFACE. 

The Democratic leaders, including Mr. 
Bryan, rest their cause on Mr. Bryan's speech, 
delivered August 12, 1896, in Madison Square 
Garden. They pronounce it a clear, forcible, 
exhaustive exposition of the cause of free silver, 
and a complete vindication of the Chicago plat- 
form. These leaders ought to know whether 
this speech rightly represents them or not. 
Taking this for granted, we may assume that a 
successful refutation of this speech is the end 
of the whole matter. All earnest seekers after 
truth should feel grateful, therefore, that the 
Democratic creed has been thus crystallized and 
made accessible to the investigator. 

It is thought no more than fair that the peo- 
ple at large and the different classes of people 
whose interests are especially referred to, should, 
in a sort of symposium, exchange ideas with Mr. 
Bryan. It is therefore as if they said, " Come, 
let us reason together." 

It will be observed that the full text of the 



6 PREFACE 

speech is given, in the order of its delivery, 
without modification ; therefore the lack of log- 
ical sequence in discussion is chargeable to Mr. 
Bryan. 

The smaller type will be used for Mr. Bryan's 
speech and the larger for the replies by all the 
supposed characters, thus enabling the reader 
readily to review the speech itself both inde- 
pendently of and in conjunction with the dia- 
logue. 

Attention is invited especially to the follow- 
ing points : 

First. The quarrel between Democrats and 
Republicans, according to the representative 
platforms of both parties, is based not upon the 
money question alone, but upon the tariff as 
well. The question is not " which is best, free 
silver or sound money?" but "which is best, 
free silver and free trade, or sound money and 
protection ? " 

Second. Every voter should take into con- 
sideration the motive which prompts a leader of 
a new cause in his claim for patronage — 

" The same ambition can destroy or save, 
And makes a patriot as it makes a knave." 

Third. When a new political proposition is 
urged for consideration, and when its success 



PREFACE 7 

threatens to shake to its foundation the exist- 
ing order of things, all national precedent and 
all sense of justice and self-preservation would 
demand that the leader of the new proposition 
prove his claim beyond any reasonable doubt. 

If Mr. McKinley and Mr. Bryan are the op- 
posing advocates in the trial of political wis- 
dom, then the voters who constitute the jury 
have a right to throw the burden of proof upon 
Mr. Bryan ; it is not incumbent upon the Re- 
publican party to prove the fallacy of the Dem- 
ocratic theory, though not a difficult task ; it 
needs only to insist that the Democratic party 
prove the zvisdom of that theory. 

Therefore in Mr. Bryan's speech we must 
look beyond mere assertion, or hope, or belief ; 
we have a right to expect proof positive. 

If ridicule must be resorted to in discussing 
some of the corollaries of Mr. Bryan's theory, in 
all seriousness, it should be remembered that 
where one of the parties to a controversy refus- 
ing to meet the other upon the common plane 
of axiomatic truth, insists upon an illogical and 
unsound premise, as Mr. Bryan frequently does, 
then it is impossible to conduct discussion in 
serious mood ; but it is hoped that the reader 
will at no time lose sight of the grave truth 
which it may be necessary to clothe in levity. 



8 PRE FA CE 

The object in sending forth this volume is 
not to startle the reader with new and original 
arguments. The fallacy of free silver is so old 
that the field of debate concerning it has been 
well cultivated. In fact, so much has been writ- 
ten about it that, upon any but the close stu- 
dent, the effect is rather bewildering than en- 
lightening. It is hoped, however, that the 
manner herein adopted of popularizing and con- 
densing the arguments as affecting each class of 
society and society as a whole will render the 
subject attractive, and will enable many readers 
to sum up the evidence on both sides, and the 
more easily and surely to arrive at a correct and 
therefore a patriotic decision. 

J. S. B. 



PROLOGUE. 



A WARNING TO BRYAN. 

BY 

THE BOOMERANG — A MODERN 
NEMESIS. 

Not since, in Smyrna old where rancor ruled, 
And men, so vile, were cursed with monstrous lust 
Has duty pressed so might'ly on my soul 
For retribution borne to cause unjust. 

Shall justice sleep and folly hold the day? 
Or may I not in ancient Grecian style 
Make modern deeds by insolence inspired 
Recoil on impi'us man with purpose vile ? 

No evil spirit I, but justice send 

With piercing sting for wondrous wrongs designed ; 

And each impurity of thought in words — 

A Boomerang shall be to smite thy mind. 

Be thou a child with guileless thought imbued, 
Or angel sent in human form to save, 
Or youth precocious in the arts of sin, 
Speak, Bryan, what thou wilt — I am no knave. 



IO PROLOGUE 

If justice, wrought in wisdom, reign in thee 
No tongue shall loose to do thy mission harm ; 
But should ambition gross thy purpose sway 
Enraged shall sound all voices in alarm. 

Or if unwisdom mark thy plan for good, 
And dire distress shall threaten where thou aim, 
Then shall all powers of franchise richly sent 
In pity — not in scorn — rebuke thy claim. 

For whether truth with good intent thou sing, 
Or falsehood clothed in gaudy glitt'ring phrase, 
Or yet again duplicity thou dare, 
The Boomerang shall fetch thee back thy lays. 

Thy silver shield howe'er its surface shine, 
Unless inlaid with scientific lore, 
Can ne'er withstand the golden darts of truth 
Whose quiver is at hand with plenteous store ; 

No metaphor shall turn sane minds from thought ; 
No " crown of thorns " nor yet a " cross of gold," 
With sting or glitter, reason e'er dethrone — 
Thy test plain truth shall be and logic bold. 

I'll speak no more ; but in each sentence wrought 
By farmers, workmen, tradesmen — all — 
My spirit shall keep vigil o'er their words 
And through their voices shall thy doom recall. 

So fare thee well ; I shall no more come forth ; 
In spirit only shall my power hold sway ; 
1 shall with truth inspire each swift reply — 
From Boomerang take warning whilst thou may. 



DRAMATIS PERSONS. 

William Jennings Bryan, candidate for President 

"Uncle Sam." 

The People {embracing all classes). 

The Jester. 

Farmers. 

Business Men {embracing merchants and manufact- 
urers). 

Bankers. 

Depositors. 

Wage-workers {embracing all salaried employees, 
public and private, whether engaged in mental or 
manual labor). 

Policy Holders. 

Professional Workers. 

Republican Party. 



MADISON SQUARE PARK, 

NEW YORK, 
6.30 P.M., Aug. 12, 1896. 



Jester : Lo ! the conquering hero comes. 

Farmers : How so ? Who is the hero ? 

JESTER : Why, Bryan, the mighty — the man 
with long hair unshorn by his Delilah — the man 
of magic power. He is the Svengali, and the 
voters are the Trilby. He tells them he is Lin- 
coln reincarnated, and they blindly do his bid- 
ding. 

Bankers : They do indeed say he can per- 
form miracles with money. There are some 
who claim he can, by a word, make a dollar of 



a nutmeg. 



Jester : Indeed it is true ; if we say " Her- 
man the great," we must now say " Bryan the 
nutmeg grater." 

Depositors : But we fear his free silver will 
shrink the value of our money one half. 



14 THE BOOMERANG 

Policy Holders : That is our fear. 

Jester : Nay, nay ! Fear not. The astrol- 
ogers say he is harmless, and the Palmist has 
discovered his life line. But above all he car- 
ries a rabbit's foot, which will keep him from 
harm and from the power of wrong-doing. 

Professional Workers : Our prosperity 
depends upon the prosperity of wage-workers, 
and if Mr. Bryan can put them back to the 
good times before free trade, we will all stump 
the country for him. 

Wage-workers: If you want to help us, 
get Mr. Bryan to tell us how we can get plenty 
of work. We are satisfied with the kind of 
money the capitalist likes. 

Jester : Work ? ha ! ha ! Vote for Bryan 
and you will get free money — i.e., if silver will 
do — yes, sir, free silver / 

Uncle Sam : Knowing the interest my peo- 
ple take in any question promising good times, 
and knowing that none of you are very busy 
since England got to doing our manufactur- 
ing for us, I have arranged for Mr. Bryan to 
make a grand public occasion of his notifica- 
tion. He will meet as many of you as can get 
past the police, and explain to you his magic 
power. 

Jester : What means this unseemly noise, as 



THE BOOMERANG 1 5 

the mingling of many curious voices? They 
shout the name of Bryan. Hark ! 

Bryan the magician, how came you here below? 
Bryan fond of try in', from whom all blessings flow. 

Uncle Sam : And happily you are in good 
season to hear him, for this is the very night, 
and there in Madison Square Garden the place ; 
the people are assembling and the hour is at 
hand. 

Free speech and free criticism cannot help a 
bad cause, nor hurt a good one ; so I pray you, 
as Polonius would advise Laertes, take his 
council, but reserve your judgment. 



ALL THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES, 

EXCEPT 

ABOUT 70,000,000 STAY-AT-HOMES, 

ASSEMBLED IN 

MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, 

NEW YORK, 
6.40 P.M., Aug. 12, i8g6. 



Jester : " Speak if you have something to 
say which is better than silence." 

Uncle Sam: Let the people first address 
themselves to Mr. Bryan, and then he will 
speak. 

Jester : Now for " The feast of reason and 
the flow of soul." 

The People : Mr. Bryan, many of us have 
never taken any lessons in philosophy, but if 
your speech can set us right in just a few sim- 
ple questions we will almost be willing to admit 
you are right on silver and save you the trouble 
of proving it : How is it that you Democrats 



1 8 THE BOOMERANG 

always want something free ? During the war 
your party fought for free labor — didn't want to 
pay anything for it — wanted actual slavery. 

After that you wanted free trade ; i.e., since 
you could not get the work for nothing you 
wanted it for the smallest pay possible by put- 
ting us in competition with the pauper labor of 
foreign countries. 

Now, having partly accomplished that, you 
want free silver, so as to give us our reduced 
wages in half-priced money. Let us see then — 
to sum up: 

1861. — Free work = no pay = absolute slav- 
ery. 

1892. — Free trade = ]/ 2 work at y 2 pay = ^ 
slavery. 

1896. — Free silver = y 2 work at y 2 pay, and 
pay worth y 2 = 7/fa slavery. 

Jester : 

Beware of " something free" 

For a Bunco man was he, 

Who on the Bowery made such a flowery 

" Green goods " speech to me. 

His voice was most divine; 

I thought all wealth was mine ; 

But fancy my sorrow when on the morrow 

A jailer was with me to dine. 



THE BOOMERANG 1 9 

The People : Also, we have heard that you 
were willing to " die for free trade," and we re- 
member that in 1892 your party told us that 
free trade would bring us great blessings, by 
making everything cheap ; now the same party 
says, Let us bless you again with free silver, which 
we will assure you will make everything dear. 
Is our understanding right, Mr. Bryan : 

1892, Low prices and prosperity promised ? 

1896, High prices and prosperity promised ? 

We know the Republican party gave us such 
good times that we almost considered prosperity 
monotonous, and we know that after your party 
"tinkered the tariff," hard times, half work, and 
half pay followed. 

Some say the tariff was not to blame, but if 
we saw a man shoot a horse and the horse died 
immediately, it would be difficult for that man 
to make us believe that the shooting and the 
death were mere coincidents ; we would ask 
him to prove that he did not kill the horse, and 
his proof must consist of more than splendid 
oratory. And so we will ask you to prove that 
your party did not cause our distress which fol- 
lowed your application of tariff reform almost 
as promptly as death followed the shooting. 

In 1892 we took many things you said for 
granted. You said, " Let's have a change," and 



20 THE BOOMERANG 

we thought (without thinking) we would try 
it; any man is liable to be a boy for a short 
season, and, boy-like, be fond of trying projects. 

Jester : I fain would recite an old fable, 
The Wolves and the Sheep : 

"Why should there always be this implacable 
warfare between us ?" said the wolves to the 
sheep. " Those evil-disposed dogs have much 
to answer for. They always bark whenever we 
approach you, and attack us before we have 
done any harm. If you would only dismiss 
them from your heels there might soon be 
treaties of peace between us." The sheep, poor 
silly creatures ! were easily beguiled, and dis- 
missed the dogs. The wolves destroyed the 
unguarded flock at their pleasure. 

Moral : Change not friends for foes. 

The People : Now that you have met us 
here in this great auditorium, we want you to 
tell us in plain language — prove to us — how you 
can do us any good this time; we have plenty 
of leisure this year to study politics. We can't 
help having leisure, for there is nothing to do. 
We realize that there is danger before us. 

Jester : Ha ! ha ! A chance for another 
favorite fable : 

The Fox and the Turkeys : A fox spied some 
turkeys roosting in a tree. He managed to at- 



THE BOOMERANG 21 

tract their attention, and then ran about the 
tree, pretended to climb, walked on his hind 
legs, and did all sorts of tricks. Filled with fear 
the turkeys watched every one of his move- 
ments until they became dizzy, and, one by one, 
fell from their safe perch. 

Moral : By too much attention to danger, we 
may fall victims to it. 

The People : We take it for granted that 
in your speech you will tell us all about the 
success of free trade, then show us what free sil- 
ver will add to the blessings already realized 
from free trade. But you must do something 
more this time than merely jump up and down 
and make a noise ; we will not twist our heads 
off watching your manoeuvres — you must prove 
your claims. 

RIGHTEOUS OR UNRIGHTEOUS CAUSE? 

Bryan : Mr. Chairman, Gentlemen of the Committee, 
and Fellow- Citizens : I shall, at a future day and in a 
formal letter, accept the nomination which is now ten- 
dered by the Notification Committee, and I shall at that 
time touch upon the issues presented by the platform. 
It is fitting, however, that at this time, in the presence 
of those here assembled, I speak at some length in re- 
gard to the campaign upon which we are now entering. 
We do not underestimate the forces arrayed against us, 



22 THE BOOMERANG 

nor are we unmindful of the importance of the struggle 
in which we are engaged ; but, relying for success upon 
the righteousness of our cause, we shall defend with all 
possible vigor the positions taken by our party. 

The People : We most certainly concur in 
the words and thoughts of your peroration. The 
language is good and the sentiments would be 
applicable to a sincere speech by a leader of any 
party — but quite as likely to be used by a dem- 
agogue as by a patriot — for if you espoused 
an unrighteous cause it is not likely you would 
then be too righteous to deny it. 

Is it possible to defend the things said by the 
pitch-fork senator and the mob-law governor ? 

Jester : 

" Immodest words admit of no defence, 
For want of decency is want of sense." 

CALLING THINGS BY THEIR RIGHT NAMES. 

Bryan : We are not surprised that some of our op- 
ponents, in the absence of better argument, resort to 
abusive epithets ; but they may rest assured that no 
language, however violent, no invectives, however ve- 
hement, will lead us to depart a single hair's breadth 
from the course marked out by the National Convention. 

Republican Party : Epithets which may 
seem abusive to you, Mr. Bryan, are not wholly 
avoidable. You cannot object to our express- 
ing an honest opinion concerning you, your ac- 



THE BOOMERANG 2$ 

tions, and your company. If you were guilty 
of treason, while it might seem harsh to you, 
we should be forced to call you a traitor. If 
you were engaged in rebellion, freedom of 
speech — even the law of speech — would require 
that we call you a rebel. 

If you ask why your conduct should be al- 
luded to as savoring of anarchy, we are com- 
pelled to point to the company you keep. 

If it seem strange that we should refer to you 
as repudiator, bear with us until we explain 
that, before hearing your proof to the contrary, 
we believe that your theory of free silver would 
result in the repudiation of debts, whether they 
be pensions, building and loan payments, insur- 
ance, savings-bank deposits, or current wages. 

Jester: Mr. Bryan himself can well afford 
to use no abusive epithets — Mrs. Lease is doing 
that for him ; she isn't working at anything else. 

Bryan : The citizen, either public or private, who 
assails the character and questions the patriotism of the 
delegates assembled in the Chicago Convention, assails 
the character and questions the patriotism of the millions 
who have arrayed themselves under the banner there 
raised. 

Wage- WORKERS : Might you not be mistaken 
or prejudiced as to the number of people who 
"have arrayed themselves" under your banner ? 



24 THE BOOMERANG 

We constitute a large majority of the voters of 
this country, and we have not arrayed ourselves 
under your banner, and shall not do so unless 
you prove that the higher prices you talk about 
will bring higher wages. We are curious to know 
how you can prove this, for history fails to 
show an instance where wages increase in 
keeping with increasing prices. 

Can you prove this point ? 

Jester : " One is almost always mistaken 
who sees malice in everything." 

IRREVOCABLE PROOF NECESSARY. 

Bryan : It has been charged by men standing high 
in business and political circles, that our platform is a 
menace to private security and public safety, and it has 
been asserted that those whom I have the honor for the 
time being to represent, not only meditate an attack 
upon the rights of property, but are the foes both of 
social order and national honor. 

Those who stand upon the Chicago platform are pre- 
pared to make known and to defend every motive which 
influences them, every purpose which animates them, 
and every hope which inspires them. 

JESTER : " Fine sense and exalted sense are 
not half so useful as common sense." 

The People: We respectfully urge, Mr. 
Bryan, that a position so radical as that which 
your platform takes should be defended by 



THE BOOMERANG 2$ 

extraordinary proof of its wisdom, or "men 
standing high in business and political circles," 
as well as the more lowly— all of us indeed- 
must regard your attitude as an attack upon the 
rights of property and a menace to all social 
order and national honor. You must, therefore, 
present to us the proof that you are right; 
otherwise, can you blame us for sticking to 
those "men standing high in business and po- 
litical circles" who characterize your platform 
as a "menace to private security and public 
safety ? " 

Your mere statement that you stand ready to 
defend your motive, is no more than many 
criminal lawyers would determine with regard 
to clients whom they know to be guilty; but 
we shall await, with interest, the proof you have 
to offer. 

Jester: He will give proof, but let him 
beware lest it be the kind the poet exposed : 

" I meet with nothing pleasant— nothing new ; 
But the same proofs, that no one text explain, 
And the same lights, where all things dark remain." 

PATRIOTIC BUT NOT ARGUMENT. 

Bryan : They understand the genius of our institu- 
tions, they are stanch supporters of the form of govern- 
ment under which we live, and they build their faith 



26 THE BOOMERANG 

upon foundations laid by the fathers. Andrew Jackson 
has stated, with admirable clearness and with an em- 
phasis which cannot be surpassed, both the duty and 
sphere of government. He said: "Distinctions in 
society will always exist under every just government. 
Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth cannot be 
produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment 
of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, 
economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to 
protection by law." We yield to none in our devotion 
to the doctrine just enunciated. 

The People: What you have quoted from 
Jackson argues loudly for patriotism, but it of- 
fers no reason why we should be free-silver ad- 
vocates. Your language also expresses noble 
sentiments ; but you are expected to do some- 
thing to prove your point. 

Jester : 

" 'Tis a kind of good deed to say well, 
And yet words are no deeds." 

Bryan : Our campaign has not for its object the re- 
construction of society. 

Wage-workers : Your Democratic cam- 
paign of 1892 did not threaten radical reorgan- 
ization, but we are keenly alive to the fact that 
our part of society has been reconstructed. 

Bryan : We cannot insure to the vicious the fruits of 
a virtuous life. 

The People : No, you cannot ; we will see 
to that. 



THE BOOMERANG 2J 

Bryan : We would not invade the home of the provi- 
dent in order to supply the wants of the spendthrift. 

Farmers : That's right ; we dislike mob law, 
but if you undertook that we would have to take 
a hand. 

Bryan : We do not propose to transfer the rewards 
of industry to the lap of indolence. 

Professional Workers : Not if we can 
prevent it ; our interests lie with the industri- 
ous, and we propose to defend them by any fair 
means within our power. 

Bryan : Property is and will remain the stimulus to 
endeavor and the compensation for toil. 

The People: This is refreshing; we feared 
from your sympathy with the Chicago rioters 
(as implied in your platform) that you had an 
understanding with Mr. Debs to the effect that 
property was to become the stimulus to envy 
and the compensation for mob force and licensed 
violence. 

. WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING. 

Bryan: We believe, as asserted in the Declaration 
of Independence, that all men are created equal; but 
that does not mean that all men are or can be equal in 
possessions, in ability, or in merit ; it simply means that 
all shall stand equal before the law, and that govern- 
ment officials shall not, in making, construing, or en- 
forcing the law, discriminate between citizens. 



28 THE BOOMERANG 

I assert that property rights, as well as the rights of 
persons, are safe in the hands of the common people. 
Abraham Lincoln, in his message sent to Congress in 
December, 1861, said: "No men living are more 
worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from pov- 
erty ; none less inclined to take or touch aught which 
they have not honestly earned." I repeat his language 
with unqualified approval, and join with him in the 
warning which he added, namely: "Let them beware 
of surrendering a political power which they already 
possess, and which power, if surrendered, will surely be 
used to close the doors of advancement against such as 
they, and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them, 
till all of liberty shall be lost." Those who daily follow 
the injunction " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat 
bread " are now, as they ever have been, the bulwark 
of law and order — the source of our nation's greatness 
in time of peace, and its surest defenders in time of 
war. 

The People : This is solid truth ; we are all 
equal before the law, and property rights, etc., 
are safe in our hands, and Lincoln had the right 
idea, about this, as he did about all matters in 
dispute between his party and the Democratic 
party. You may rest assured that we shall not 
surrender our political power. 

But if you will pardon a seeming impatience, 
we would suggest that an attempt to bias our 
minds by a flow of nice sentiments, and refer- 
ences to well-known patriots, would be received 



THE BOOMERANG 2$ 

with much greater favor after you have proved 
that you stand for patriotism, than before. You 
must acknowledge that you represent the same 
old party that opposed Lincoln, and when you 
undertake to reinstate that party by a recital of 
the wise and timely sayings of the great and 
honest Lincoln, we should think you would be 
afraid lest the voters recall, with damaging force, 
the fact that the great majority of the honest 
plain people in i860 were with Abraham Lin- 
coln, who was defending the country against 
attacks on its honor and safety, and that these 
same plain people were opposed to Jefferson 
Davis, who was willing to run the risk of ruin- 
ing the country to satisfy his own ambition for 
the office of President and the sway of power. 

Jester : Let the magnet of the Platte take 
warning from the fate of the wolf— but hear ye 
all the fable, The Wolf Turned Shepherd : 

A wolf, finding that the sheep were so afraid 
of him that he could not get near them, dis- 
guised himself in the dress of a shepherd, and 
thus attired, approached the flock. As he came 
near, he found the shepherd fast asleep. As the 
sheep did not run away, he resolved to imitate 
the voice of the shepherd. In trying to do so, 
he only howled, and awoke the shepherd. As 
he could not run away, he was soon killed. 



30 THE BOOMERANG 

Moral: Those who attempt to .act in dis- 
guise are apt to overdo it. 

The People: Before you can place yourself 
in the position of Lincoln in relation to the 
plain people, we must be convinced that the 
party of Jefferson Davis, now headed by you, 
stands for greater good to the plain people than 
the party of Abraham Lincoln, now headed by 
William McKinley. 

You must not, therefore, by mere patriotic 
pyrotechnics attempt to blind us ; but, we pray, 
leave our vision clear and our minds unbiassed 
until we have examined your claim. After we 
are made certain that your wisdom and your 
honesty of purpose are equal to the reform pro- 
posed, then we shall like to listen to your pleas- 
ing utterances. 

Jester : "Business before pleasure." 

The People : To be candid about it, your 
fawning eloquence really counts against you be- 
fore we find you out, for an imputation of all 
the virtue to one's self is an implied plea of 
guilt. 

Jester: "'Tis time to fear, when tyrants 
seem to kiss." 



THE BOOMERANG 3 1 



FAVORED ONLY HONEST MONEY. 

Bryan : But I have only read a part of Jackson's ut- 
terance ; let me give you his conclusion : " But when 
the laws undertake to add to those natural and just ad- 
vantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, 
and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the 
potent more powerful, the humble members of society — 
the farmers, mechanics, and the day-laborers, who have 
neither the time nor the means of securing like favors 
for themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice 
of their government." Those who support the Chicago 
platform indorse all of the quotation from Jackson, the 
latter part as well as the former part. 

The People : We may well refer the ques- 
tion of free silver to our patriotic forefathers ; 
none of them ever thought of prostituting the 
Government to the procurement of " artificial 
distinctions," or " exclusive privileges," either 
for the silver kings, the Government, or the 
debtor class of citizens. 

Is it not true, Mr. Bryan, that their whole 
theory of real bimetallism has been based at all 
times upon the market ratio of gold and silver ? 
We have reason to believe that our fathers would 
as soon have thought of fixing the price of steel, or 
wheat, or zinc, or copper, by national legislation, 
as the price of silver. They knew, as does every 
wise statesman to-day, and every merchant, 



32 THE BOOMERANG 

banker, mechanic, farmer, and day-laborer, that 
such arbitrary legislation, if not immediately 
ruinous, would be a wrong step, which, as a 
precedent, would be followed up by those in 
power for the benefit of other classes — now the 
copper miner, then the nickel or aluminum 
miner — until our Government would undertake 
to stand patron over each industry, destroying 
them all alike. 

SPURIOUS PATRIOTISM. 

Bryan : We are not surprised to find arrayed against 
us those who are the beneficiaries of Government favor- 
itism — they have read our platform. Nor are we sur- 
prised to learn that we must, in this campaign, face the 
hostility of those who find a pecuniary advantage in ad- 
vocating the doctrine of non-interference when great 
aggregations of wealth are trespassing upon the rights 
of individuals. We welcome such opposition ; it is the 
highest indorsement which could be bestowed upon us. 
We are content to have the co-operation of those who 
desire to have the Government administered without 
fear or favor. 

Jester : 

"Ah, that deceit should steal such gentle 
shapes, 
And with a virtuous visor hide deep vice." 
The People: If "Government favoritism" 
refers to the protection of American industries 



THE BOOMERANG 33 

(you do not tell us), then we, the laborers, me- 
chanics, farmers, merchants, and professional 
people— we, the citizens of America— are free 
to confess that, having read your platform and 
being unwilling to dispense with that " Gov- 
ernment favoritism " which has made America 
the haven of rest for all those afflicted with 
tyranny, we cannot as yet see why we should 
not be " arrayed against " you. It is easy for 
you to assert that " great aggregations of wealth 
are trespassing upon the rights of individuals," 
but first, may we not question your sincerity 
when you undertake thus to enrage labor against 
capital ; and second, may we not, in all candor, 
ask you to prove beyond a doubt that you have 
a cure for such a condition ? If you could get 
the co-operation of all "who desire to have 
the Government administered without fear or 
favor," you would be elected, for that is an 
American principle. 

If, on the other hand, by " Government favor- 
itism "you mean those who benefited by Mr. 
Cleveland's sale of bonds, then our reply is : 

First. Although Democratic free trade so re- 
duced the revenues as to necessitate the sale of 
bonds, it was never necessary for this sale to be 
made to individuals at a loss of $10,000,000 to 
the Government, as was proved by the subse- 
3 



34 THE BOOMERANG 

quent issue, which was made popular and from 
which nothing but legitimate benefit was de- 
rived by any one. 

Second. If it was wrong, which it certainly 
was, for the Democratic party to so manipulate 
affairs as to necessitate a bond issue, and then 
to make that necessity an excuse for a private 
contract, giving " Government favoritism " to a 
bond syndicate, would it be less wrong for the 
same Democratic party to give Senator Stewart, 
W. R. Hearst, and the remainder of the small 
horde of silver mine-owners a chance to make 
out of this " Government favoritism " not merely 
$10,000,000, once in a life-time, but over $100,- 
000,000 each year, as they would if your free- 
silver law would double the price of silver 
according to your claim? The Republican 
party in 1892 opposed such abuse of the tariff 
as to necessitate the issue of more bonds; it 
now favors, and has always favored, such proper 
use as to enable the country in time of peace to 
pay off the bonds necessarily issued in time of 
war. Every page of its record shows this to be 
its policy. 

We have never heard of the Republican 
party indorsing Mr. Cleveland's private con- 
tract with Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan. For the 
same patriotic reasons the Republican party is 



THE BOOMERANG 35 

opposed to another private contract between 
the Government and the mine syndicate, giving 
them $200,000,000 a year, for their out-put, 
which they are now eager to sell at $100,000,- 
000 a year. Therefore, when you criticise the 
Government for its " Government favoritism," 
we think you are justly criticising your own 
party. 
Jester : 

" O, what a tangled web we weave, 
When first we practise to deceive." 



THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY ITSELF GUILTY. 

Bryan : It is not the wish of the general public that 
trusts should spring into existence and override the 
weaker members of society ; it is not the wish of the 
general public that these trusts should destroy competi- 
tion and then collect such tax as they will from those 
who are at their mercy ; nor is it the fault of the gen- 
eral public that the instrumentalities of government 
have been so often prostituted to purposes of private 
gain. Those who stand upon the Chicago platform be- 
lieve that the Government should not only avoid wrong- 
doing, but that it should also prevent wrong-doing, and 
they believe that the law should be enforced alike 
against all enemies of the public weal. They do not 
excuse petit larceny, but they declare that grand lar- 
ceny is equally a crime ; they do not defend the occu- 
pation of the highwayman who robs the unsuspecting 



36 THE BOOMERANG 

traveller, but they include among the transgressors 
those who, through the more polite and less hazardous 
means of legislation, appropriate to their own use the 
proceeds of the toil of others. The commandment 
" Thou shalt not steal," thundered from Sinai and re- 
iterated in the legislation of all nations, is no respecter 
of persons. It must be applied to the great as well as 
to the small ; to the strong as well as the weak ; to 
the corporate person created by law as well as to the 
person of flesh and blood created by the Almighty. 
No government is worthy of the name which is not able 
to protect from every arm uplifted for his injury, the 
humblest citizen who lives beneath the flag. It follows 
as a necessary conclusion, that vicious legislation must 
be remedied by the people who suffer from the effects 
of such legislation, and not by those who enjoy its 
benefits. 

Jester: With my eyes shut, I could think 
him a Republican belaboring the " perfidious " 
Democrats. 

The People : What you have just said is a 
noble statement, although it is not argument. 
The thing we want to do is to hunt down that 
party which is in favor of wrong-doing, which is 
against the public weal, and which appropriates 
to the use of its constituents the proceeds of the 
toil of others. 

Of course the humblest citizen should be pro- 
tected and vicious legislation must be remedied 
by the people. 






THE BOOMERANG 37 

All this being true, we are anxious to locate 
the political party which is opposed to such 
pure and wholesome American doctrine. 

If the issue of bonds by private contract to 
the bond syndicate, giving them a profit of 
$10,000,000, might be termed petit larceny, then 
the Government coinage of $100,000,000 worth 
of silver per year, forcing it (as you say) to the 
price of $200,000,000, might fairly be considered 
grand larceny ; and we do not excuse the Demo- 
crats of 1892 for the one, nor the Democrats of 
1896 for the other. 

If the President and a Democratic Congress, 
who shut up our factories and put us on half 
rations, may be considered highwaymen, robbing 
unexpected travellers, then we must feel that 
any other President with a Democratic Con- 
gress, who would institute such legislation as to 
cut in two the purchasing power of our already 
reduced wages (which we believe free silver 
would do) must be regarded among the "trans- 
gressors who, through the more polite and less 
hazardous means of legislation, appropriate to 
their own use the proceeds of the toil of others." 

Before you lay your hands upon half the 
wages of the American wage-workers, and thus 
cut off their ability to purchase farm products, 
you had better listen closely and note if you 



38 THE BOOMERANG 

cannot hear " thundered from Sinai " the voice 
of the people saying, " Thou shalt not steal." 
From the mechanic, the laborer, the clerk, and 
all others whose incomes are fixed by agree- 
ment, you will hear " Thou shalt not steal " 
one-half of our wages by compelling us to ac- 
cept money whose purchasing power is reduced 
one-half, with no proof from you or from any- 
body that our wages will be increased accord- 
ingly ; from the pensioner, " Thou shalt not 
steal " one-half of our small pittance, sparingly 
doled out by a Government which we saved ; 
from the thrifty poor all over the land, " Thou 
shalt not steal " one-half of our deposits in sav- 
ings banks and in building and loan associa- 
tions ; from the widows and orphans, " Thou 
shalt not steal " one-half of our insurance money 
which was so generously and carefully pro- 
vided by our husbands and fathers ; and lastly, 
from the farmer, " Thou shalt not steal " from 
us our best market by cutting in half the value 
of the money paid to the wage-workers of 
America, from whom, in their thrifty days be- 
fore your vicious law of free trade, we were able 
to secure a good price for all our commodities." 
Wage-workers : And now, Mr. Bryan, since 
you have alluded to one of the commandments, 
may we not call your attention to some of the 



THE BOOMERANG 39 ' 

others ? " Six days shalt thou labor and do all 
thy work." It is absolutely impossible for us to 
keep that portion of the commandment which 
requires us to work six days. We cannot find 
the work to do. Our English cousins are doing 
it for us. 

Again, when you are pointing out to us the 
difference between rich and poor (a difference 
which we know will always exist), do not de- 
ceive yourself into thinking that you can induce 
honest workmen, as we claim to be, to break 
that other commandment, "Thou shalt not 
covet thy neighbor's house." A little more of 
the sort of scripture you have quoted would not 
be amiss in this campaign. Give us a chance to 
earn money and homes of our own, but do not 
urge us to covet the earnings of our more fortu- 
nate neighbors. 

THE INCOME-TAX LAW. 

Bryan : The Chicago platform has been condemned 
by some because it dissents from an opinion rendered 
by the Supreme Court declaring the income-tax law un- 
constitutional. Our critics even go so far as to apply 
the name Anarchist to those who stand upon that plank 
of the platform. It must be remembered that we ex- 
pressly recognize the binding force of that decision so 
long as it stands as a part of the law of the land. There 



40 THE BOOMERANG 

is in the platform no suggestion of an attempt to dispute 
the authority of the Supreme Court. The party is sim- 
ply to use " all the constitutional power which remains 
after that decision, or which may come from its reversal 
by the Court as it may hereafter be constituted." Is 
there any disloyalty in that pledge ? For a hundred 
years the Supreme Court of the United States has sus- 
tained the principle which underlies the income tax. 
Some twenty years ago this same court sustained, with- 
out a dissenting voice, an income-tax law almost identi- 
cal with the one recently overthrown ; has not a future 
court as much right to return to the judicial precedents 
of a century, as the present court had to depart from 
them ? When courts allow rehearings they admit that 
error is possible ; the late decision against the income 
tax was rendered by a majority of one after a rehearing. 
While the money question overshadows all other 
questions in importance, I desire it distinctly under- 
stood, that I shall offer no apology for the income-tax 
plank of the Chicago platform. The last income-tax 
law sought to apportion the burdens of government 
more equitably among those who enjoy the protection of 
the Government. At present the expenses of the Fed- 
eral Government, collected through internal revenue 
taxes and import duties, are especially burdensome 
upon the poorer classes of society. A law which col- 
lects from some citizens more than their share of the 
taxes, and collects from other citizens less than their 
share, is simply an indirect means of transferring one 
man's property to another man's pocket, and while the 
process may be quite satisfactory to the men who escape 
just taxation, it will never be satisfactory to those who 



THE BOOMERANG 4 1 

are overburdened. The last income-tax law, with its 
exemption provisions, when considered in connection 
with other methods of taxation in force, was not unjust 
to the possessors of large incomes, because they were 
not compelled to pay a total Federal tax greater than 
their share. The income tax is not new, nor is it based 
upon hostility to the rich. The system is employed 
in several of the most important nations of Europe, and 
every income-tax law now upon the statute books in any 
land, so far as I have been able to ascertain, contains 
an exemption clause. While the collection of an income 
tax in other countries does not make it necessary for 
this nation to adopt the system, yet it ought to moder- 
ate the language of those who denounce the income tax 
as an assault upon the well-to-do. 

Not only shall I refuse to apologize for the advocacy 
of an income-tax law by the National Convention, but I 
shall also refuse to apologize for the exercise by it of the 
right to dissent from a decision of the Supreme Court. 
In a government like ours every public official is a pub- 
lic servant, whether he hold office by election or by 
appointment, whether he serves for a term of years or 
during good behavior, and the people have a right to 
criticise his official acts. " Confidence is everywhere 
the parent of despotism ; free government exists in 
jealousy and not in confidence " — these are the words of 
Thomas Jefferson, and I submit that they present a 
truer conception of popular government than that enter- 
tained by those who would prohibit an unfavorable 
comment upon a court decision. Truth will vindicate 
itself; only error fears free speech. No public official 
who conscientiously discharges his duty as he sees it 



42 THE BOOMERANG 

will desire to deny to those whom he serves the right to 
discuss his official conduct. 

Wage-workers : We could have no objection 
to an income tax on the ground that it imme- 
diately takes anything from us. Our objection 
is that it is class legislation; and when it is once 
begun by any nation, no one knows whose head 
will be cracked next. 

While the wealthy can stand the injustice of an 
income tax, yet we would be loath to administer 
such an arbitrary measure, both from the sense of 
simple justice and also because it is well known to 
us that when the rulers of a government once cut 
loose from honest restraint and begin to lay the 
burden of taxation first on one class and then 
on another, we, the plain people, will finally be 
picked out as least able to resist such taxation, 
and we should expect that retaliation would 
surely come. 

Jester : 

" If we do but watch the hour, 
There never yet was human power 
Which could evade, if unforgiven, 
The patient search and vigil long 
Of him who treasures up a wrong." 

The People : As a substitute for the income 
tax and all other forms of class legislation, the 
Republican party offers a protective tariff which 



THE BOOMERANG 43 

throws the burden of revenue on the foreign 
beneficiaries of our market. 

The Democratic plan paralyzes capital and 
discourages American enterprise ; the Republi- 
can plan invigorates capital and revives enter- 
prise by employing all surplus capital and all 
American labor, and this very process raises a 
sufficient revenue to put entirely out of the ques- 
tion the issue of class legislation as a means of 
governmental support. 

It is not the fact that the Chicago platform 
criticised the judiciary that has brought down 
our condemnation, but it is the unwisdom and 
the un-Americanism of their implied threat to 
reconstruct the Supreme Court for partisan pur- 
poses. 

The remedy for a court decision which is ob- 
noxious to the majority of the people is in con- 
stitutional amendment by ballot. This your 
Chicago platform does not suggest ; nor would 
this suggestion, when applied to the income tax, 
meet with favor in the fair minds and honest 
hearts of the ever-watchful citizens of the United 
States. 

Wage-workers : You seem to have gotten 
the idea, Mr. Bryan, that we laborers are down 
on the rich, and we have heard a number of 
people say that you take every occasion to foster 



44 THE BOOMERANG 

a feeling of enmity among us toward the wealth- 
ier classes. You make a great mistake in this. 
We do not want to take from the wealthy 
by unjust taxation or by any other wrongful 
method. An income tax cannot possibly be 
necessary except by the absence of a protective 
tariff ; therefore, desiring protection as we do, 
the only excuse we could give for wanting to 
inflict this burden on the rich would be the mere 
fact that they are rich. What kind of a country 
would we have if this sort of feeling became 
prevalent in America? We covet no man's 
money. We want money only in exchange for 
honest toil. We know that some of the wealthy 
people were, as we are, laborers, a few years 
ago, and we expect by diligence and honesty and 
by voting right, to be able to make good honest 
livings; and some of the more industrious and 
intelligent of us will undoubtedly grow wealthy 
just as others in the past have done. 

We therefore discard as spurious and harmful 
your inflammatory efforts to array us against our 
wealthier neighbors, and we prefer to substitute 
in the place of what you say the words of 
Abraham Lincoln — the man whom you have 
quoted, and whose sympathy with the common 
people was certainly genuine. Mr. Lincoln said 
to the committee from the Workingmen's Asso- 



THE BOOMERANG 45 

ciation of New York, in the campaign of 1864 : 
" Prosperity is the fruit of labor; prosperity is 
desirable ; it is a positive good in the world ; 
that some should be rich shows that others may 
become rich, and hence Is just encouragement to 
industry and enterprise. Let no man who is 
homeless pull down the house of another, but 
let him work diligently and build one for him- 
self, thus by example assuring that his own shall 
be safe from violence, when built." 

Jester : " Honesty is the best policy," though, 
by the orator's license, policy is sometimes sub- 
stituted for honesty. 

Wage-workers : We know that labor can- 
not get on without capital, any more than cap- 
ital can get on without labor. 

Therefore do not continue to harangue us 
with a poisonous demagoguery such as we might 
have expected from a cheap politician. 



AN UNSOUND CONCLUSION THE RESULT OF AN 
ILLOGICAL PREMISE. 

BRYAN : Now let me ask you to consider the para- 
mount question of this campaign — the money question. 
It is scarcely necessary to defend the principle of bi- 
metallism. No national party during the entire history 
of the United States has ever declared against it, and 
no party in this campaign has had the tendency to op- 



46 THE BOOMERANG 

pose it. Three parties — the Democratic, Populist, and 
Silver parties — have not only declared for bimetallism, 
but have outlined the specific legislation necessary to 
restore silver to its ancient position by the side of gold. 
The Republican platform expressly declares that bi- 
metallism is desirable when it pledges the Republican 
party to aid in securing it as soon as the assistance of 
certain foreign nations can be obtained. Those who 
represented the minority sentiment in the Chicago 
Convention opposed the free coinage of silver by the 
United States by independent action, on the ground that, 
in their judgment, it " would retard or entirely prevent 
the establishment of international bimetallism, to which 
the efforts of the Government should be steadily di- 
rected." When they asserted that the efforts of the 
Government should be steadily directed toward the es- 
tablishment of international bimetallism, they con- 
demned monometallism. The gold standard has been 
weighed in the balance and found wanting. Take from 
it the powerful support of the money - owning and 
the money-changing classes and it cannot stand for one 
day in any nation in the world. It was fastened upon the 
United States without discussion before the people, and 
its friends have never yet been willing to risk a verdict 
before the voters upon that issue. 

There can be no sympathy or co-operation between 
the advocates of a universal gold standard and the ad- 
vocates of bimetallism. Between bimetallism— whether 
independent or international — and the gold standard 
there is an impassable gulf. Is this quadrennial agita- 
tion in favor of international bimetallism conducted in 
good faith, or do our opponents really desire to maintain 



THE BOOMERANG 47 

the gold standard permanently ? Are they willing to 
confess the superiority of a double standard when joined 
in by the leading nations of the world, or do they still 
insist that gold is the only metal suitable for standard 
money among civilized nations ? If they are, in fact, 
desirous of securing bimetallism, we may expect them 
to point out the evils of a gold standard and defend bi- 
metallism as a system. 

If, on the other hand, they are bending their energies 
toward the permanent establishment of a gold standard 
under cover of a declaration in favor of international bi- 
metallism, I am justified in suggesting that honest 
money cannot be expected at the hands of those who 
deal dishonestly with the American people. 

The People : Here, Mr. Bryan, you ignore 
a fundamental principle ; namely, that the ad- 
vocates of international bimetallism claim that 
the free coinage of silver, by the independent 
action of the United States, would result not in 
bimetallism but in silver monometallism ; such 
has been the result in every nation where free 
coinage of silver exists to-day. 

Your whole creed, boiled down to your mani- 
fest satisfaction, seems to be embodied in two 
questions, in effect as follows : 

First. " If bimetallism is a bad thing, why 
desire it through international agreement ? " 

Second. "If bimetallism is a good thing, 
why not join our party which proposes it now ? " 



48 THE BOOMERANG 

The mischief of such reasoning can only be 
discovered by examining the premise which in 
your argument is not even implied. Your logi- 
cal premise is that the independent free coinage 
of silver by the United States would result in 
bimetallism ; and since this is disputed you 
should first prove the truth of your premise be- 
fore you found conclusions upon it. When the 
Republican party expresses a desire for bimet- 
allism it does not by that expression denote a 
willingness to accept in its place silver mono- 
metallism ; and when you persist in ignoring 
this fundamental difference you are guilty of 
unsound logic. 

The Republican party says, "We ask for bi- 
metallism and you offer us silver monometal- 
lism ; " then you reply, " If you want bimetallism 
why don't you adopt our silver monometallic 
theory ? " If you had been present when Christ 
rebuked those who when asked for bread gave 
a stone, and you had wished to attract attention 
by a scintillating utterance, you doubtless would 
have said : " If bread is a bad thing, why should 
any one ask for it, and if it is * good thing, why 
should any one refuse tvhatever is offered when- 
ever he asks for bread? " 

Jester : " He who denies self-evident truths 
cannot be reasoned with." 



THE BOOMERANG 49 

The People: Since your theory has been 
tried by other nations and found wanting, why 
should not we profit by their example rather 
than by learning at that dear school of ex- 
perience ? If the doctor has tried his nostrums 
upon a dog with resultant death, will his patient 
be ready to have it tried on him next ? 

The Republican platforms of the past have 
uniformly contended for that which is good and 
stable in finance until something better and 
equally stable could be substituted. It is not 
that they believe the present gold standard is 
absolutely perfect— for it is the result of human 
endeavor; but let us improve the system— not 
uproot it. 

Jester : 
" Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, 
Thinks what ne'er was nor is, nor e'er shall be." 
The People : The sun has spots, but since 
it is the best source of light and warmth avail- 
able, we continue to let it shine on us. 

America is the best country on earth ; shall 
we expatriate ourselves because it is not per- 
fect ? 

Our criminal laws do not wholly prevent 
crime ; shall we repeal them all and start anew, 
or shall we, with patience and judgment, im- 
prove our laws ? 
4 



50 THE BOOMERANG 

Because the farmer is not wholly satisfied 
with every feature of his farm, is he likely to 
trade it for a distant farm with the conditions 
of which he is not familiar ? 

A child tired of a valuable toy might readily 
exchange it for a beautiful soap-bubble, but a 
nation of thinking men will scarcely risk the 
abandonment of the best financial system so far 
known to civilization for a system which, with 
all its bewitching theory, has proved itself 
impracticable, and inadequate to the wants of 
high civilization. 

Some thoughtless people, like the Irishman 
who preferred the moon to the sun, because the 
moon shone at night, when most needed, fancy 
their preference for the pale light of Democracy 
because it offers theoretical guidance out of the 
dilemma which is temporarily enshrouded by the 
dark cloud which Democratic mismanagement 
and misfeasance have forced between American 
industry and the illuminating and enlightening 
Republican party. 

The Republicans believe that the best finan- 
cial system possible for the United States, act- 
ing alone, is that which enables the wage-earner 
who may receive by his debtor-employer's pre- 
ference a silver dollar, to know that the pur- 
chasing power of that silver dollar is and will 



THE BOOMERANG 5 1 

remain equal to the gold dollar retained by his 
employer; and we believe with the Republican 
party that the only way the wage-earner can 
know this is by his ability at all times to ex- 
change his silver dollar for gold at the bank, or 
for a gold dollar's worth at the grocery. Noth- 
ing can thus assure him except the constant and 
practically unchanging value of gold together 
with the assurance of the Government that his 
silver dollar can be exchanged for gold at his 
pleasure. The Government can make this as- 
surance only by reason of the fact that it pos- 
sesses the gold with which to make good the 
promise, and it cannot possess the gold very 
long if it volunteers to exchange its limited 
supply of gold for the practically unlimited sup- 
ply of silver in the whole world. 

Jester : 

" And what's impossible can't be, 
And never, never comes to pass." 

The People : It seems to us that real bi- 
metallism is an international question, and be- 
fore discussing the desirability of bimetallism, 
whose virtue we do not deny, you must first, 
Mr. Bryan, prove to us that free silver, by the 
act of the United States alone, actually means 
bimetallism, and not silver monometallism. 

When you have brought to bear sufficient 



52 THE BOOMERANG 

proof to set aside the judgment of the best 
thinkers on this subject, and examples to set 
aside the actual experience of Mexico, China, 
and other nations now actually reaping the bene- 
fits (?) of free silver, then it will be time enough 
for you to impugn the motives and the honesty 
of the Republican party, whose patriotic prin- 
ciples have proved the guidance of American 
liberty in time of war, the architects of secure 
and perpetual union in the perilous days of re- 
construction, and the founders of abiding public 
faith and public credit by an unrelenting insist- 
ance on the resumption of specie payment and 
the redemption of every financial pledge in the 
best money to be had. 

If Major William McKinley had used the last 
sentence of this section of your speech to round 
out a period against the populistic tendency of 
your Chicago platform, the imputation, while 
no more polite, would be more suggestive of the 
truth. 

PERFECTION NOT EXPECTED. 
Bryan : What is the test of honesty in money ? It 
must certainly be found in the purchasing power of the 
dollar. An absolutely honest dollar would not vary in 
its general purchasing power ; it would be absolutely 
stable when measured by average prices. A dollar 
which increases in purchasing power is just as dishonest 
as a dollar which decreases in purchasing power. Pro- 



THE BOOMERANG 53 

fessor Laughlin, now of the University of Chicago, and 
one of the highest gold - standard authorities, in his 
work on bimetallism, not only admits that gold does not 
remain absolutely stable in value, but expressly asserts 
" that there is no such thing as a standard of value for 
future payments, either in gold or silver, which remains 
absolutely invariable." He even suggests that a multi- 
ple standard, wherein the unit is "based upon the sell- 
ing prices of a number of articles of general consump- 
tion," would be a more just standard than either gold or 
silver, or both, because " a long-time contract would 
thereby be paid at its maturity by the same purchasing 
power as was given in the beginning." 

It cannot be successfully claimed that monometallism 
or bimetallism, or any other system, gives an absolutely 
just standard of value. 

Jester: "No man may have all that he 
pleases." 

The People : This is the same argument we 
have just used in alluding to the " spots on the 
sun ; " and since, even under the most favorable 
circumstances, no standard can be absolutely 
invariable, why should we change that which 
we know to be nearly invariable, for something 
which would not promise any greater degree of 
perfection, so far as its constancy is concerned, 
and which would, at the same time, put us at a 
great disadvantage in our trade with foreign 
countries. We do not like to give up a sure 
thing for an uncertainty. 



54 THE BOOMERANG 

Wage-workers : We would like a word to 
say here : If the dollars which we receive for 
our wages are liable to change in value at all 
before we can spend them, we would like to 
feel that the tendency is for them to rise in 
value rather than to fall, for we may sometimes 
keep a dollar overnight. 

VALUE NOT INFLUENCED BY PER CAPITA. 

Bryan : Under both monometallism and bimetallism 
the Government fixes the weight and fineness of the 
dollar, invests it with legal-tender qualities, and then 
opens the mint to its unrestricted coinage, leaving the 
purchasing power of the dollar to be determined by the 
number of dollars. 

Uncle Sam : Stop a moment, Mr. Bryan. 
Your statement is correct until you declare that 
the purchasing power of the dollar "is deter- 
mined by the number of dollars." If this were 
true, then your claim that gold has risen in 
value is mere sophistry, for there are more dol- 
lars in the United States to-day than there were 
twenty years ago, since which time you claim 
that the dollar has risen: per capita, 1873, 
$18.04; per capita, 1878, $15.32; per capita, 
1895, $23.02. Therefore what you have said 
is only half truth. 

Jester: "A lie always needs a truth for a 
handle to it." 



THE BOOMERANG 55 

Uncle Sam : Now you would not claim that 
the dollar is worth any more in Canada than in 
the United States (prices being about the same 
at both places), yet the per capita in Canada is 
only $10 (of which only $2.92 is gold), against 
our per capita of $23.02 (of which $9.08 is 
gold). 

Here is the place you must bring in your 
theory of supply and demand — not supply and 
demand of dollars, however, but supply and 
demand of those values for which money stands 
ready to exchange. 

Nothing can demand money except labor, or 
property, or money-promise. Now, if economic 
laws are formed on a wrong basis, so as to cause 
an over-production of property or a surplus of 
labor, it is obvious that the effect will be cheaper 
property and cheaper labor, not dearer money, 
as the fiat inflationists always claim ; and when 
labor and property are thus cheapened, fewer 
people proffer a money-promise for money, be- 
cause an idle people cannot purchase, and when 
this is the case business and manufacturing will 
not justify the use of borrowed money. This is 
why interest is lower when your free-trade 
policy shuts up our factories and forces our 
people out of employment. 

Thus over-production of goods and surplus of 



5^ THE BOOMERANG 

labor induces, or rather necessitates, the hoard- 
ing of money. Our trouble, therefore, to-day 
is not a lack of money, but it is a lack of proper 
inducements to bring forth the money which is 
more than anxious to find an avenue of useful- 
ness. 

Farmers : We are affected not by too little 
money but by too much wheat and too few 
customers. We know that when either wheat is 
scarce, or when the wage-workers are busy, then 
our wheat brings a good price and money is 
plentiful. 

We never expect to have a kind of money 
that will hurt us. We shall always expect to 
hurt the money with value received, but we do 
expect a market for our products, and we will 
help keep our people employed, knowing that 
this will give us the best market in the world. 

LET WELL ENOUGH ALONE. 

Bryan : Bimetallism is better than monometallism, 
not because it gives us a perfect dollar— that is, a dollar 
absolutely unvarying in its general purchasing power- 
but because it makes a nearer approach to stability, to 
honesty, to justice, than a gold standard possibly can. 

Jester : 

" My merry, merry, merry roundelay 
Concludes with Cupid's curse: 



THE BOOMERANG $7 

They that do change old loves for new, 
Pray gods, they change for worse." 

The People : Now, Mr. Bryan, you are 
again lapsing into mere theory. As long as our 
present monetary system seems as good as the 
new system you offer we cannot afford to change ; 
the risk is too great. If the silver standard 
should happen to mean silver monometallism 
and should prove to be a mistake, the sudden 
convulsion of the body of Government would 
be terrible, and every bone and sinew of that 
body, i.e., every individual of society, will re- 
ceive a paralytic shock such as can never be 
cured, and which will, as sure as destiny, leave 
some of the parts, i.e., some individuals, para- 
lyzed beyond all hope of cure. If, on the other 
hand, the gold standard is a mistake (now that 
sentiment is to a certain extent aroused), another 
four years is scant time for the great mass of 
voters to watch its effect and study the remedy. 
Thus discretion would counsel us to let well 
enough alone until we are positive that we have 
found a substitute which will surely improve 
our financial condition rather than threaten to 
impair it. 

Jester : I wonder if in very truth " Discre- 
tion is the better part of valor ? " 

The People : If it is proposed to take away 



58 THE BOOMERANG 

the dam which holds back a large body of water, 
subserving both a life-giving and a life-saving 
purpose, the tyro engineer must make us doubly 
sure that his proposed new structure will serve 
the purpose equally as well, or even better ; 
and he must also convince us that the change 
from one to the other will not be attended with 
destruction of property and loss of life ; and his 
claim must rest upon scientific experiment — not 
upon magic power. 

Then, finally, if there remain a shadow of 
doubt as to the possibility, advisability, or ex- 
pediency of such a change, he must give us 
time to study his theory, even though it take 
us four years ; and he must not in the mean- 
time touch the wall which is at present serving 
our purpose. You must, therefore, do more 
than give a mere opinion — you must prove your 
claim. 



INCREASED USE OF SILVER FAILS TO HOLD 
UP ITS PRICE. 

Bryan : Prior to 1873, when there were enough open 
mints to permit all the gold and silver available for coin- 
age to find entrance into the world's volume of standard 
money, the United States might have maintained a gold 
standard with less injury to the people of this country. 

Bankers: Before 1873 it mattered very 



THE BOOMERANG 59 

little whether we were on a gold basis or a 
bimetallic basis, because the market price of 
silver was equal to its legal ratio with gold, and 
the total amount brought to the mints for free 
coinage during the entire eighty years prior to 
that date was only $8,000,000, while the amount 
coined since 1873 under the act of that year and 
under the Bland-Allison act of 1878 and the 
Sherman act of 1890 is about $620,000,000. 
Before 1873 these figures show an average of 
$100,000 per year. Since 1873, $31,000,000 per 
year— three hundred and ten times as much per 
year as before, or nearly as much per day since 
1873 as per year before that time. But notwith- 
standing this increased demand for silver the 
price has continued to fall. 

It seems incredible that you should assert even 
your belief that free silver would be attended 
with less danger now, when the price is very 
low and still falling and the supply enormously 
increased, than when the price was uniform and 
the supply did not threaten any great disparity 
between it and gold. 

If your desire is to drive all our gold out of 
circulation no more effective way could be con- 
ceived than to assign to it the impossible task 
of lifting all the world's silver up to double its 
natural price. 



60 THE BOOMERANG 

If there existed but a limited supply our Gov- 
ernment could of course use it all, and if it really 
desired to do so could pay two prices for it, and 
this would keep the price up ; but since the sup- 
ply is the increased and increasing accumulation 
of all past ages, nothing but a fit of madness 
could induce our people to take the terrible risk. 

None but the foolhardy regard a dare to do 
an impossible thing. 

Jester : 

" I dare do all that may become a man, 
Who dares do more is none." 

THE WAGE-WORKERS THE CREDITORS. 

Bryan : But now, when each step toward a universal 
gold standard enhances the purchasing power of gold, 
depresses prices, and transfers to the pockets of the cred- 
itor class an unearned increment, the influence of this 
great nation must not be thrown upon the side of gold 
unless we are prepared to accept the natural and legiti- 
mate consequences of such an act. 

Wage-workers : Now, Mr. Bryan, while, 
as before said, we would rather have a money 
standard that does not change, yet if it must 
change we certainly prefer to have it rise in 
value rather than fa//. You seem to forget that 
we (the wage-workers) are the very creditors 
about whom you have so much to say. We 



THE BOOMERANG 6 1 

trust our employers for our wages from week to 
week, and they are never out of our debt, ex- 
cept from Saturday night to Monday morning. 
We are therefore the creditors, and our employ- 
ers the debtors, so far as we are concerned, and 
we oppose any system that will enable our 
debtor-employers to pay us in either a depre- 
ciated or depreciating currency. 

NO CRUSADE AGAINST SILVER. 

Bryan : Any legislation which lessens the world's 
stock of standard money increases the exchangeable 
value of the dollar ; therefore, the crusade against silver 
must inevitably raise the purchasing power of money, 
and lower the money value of all other forms of prop- 
erty. 

Uncle Sam: But, Mr. Bryan, we are not 
conducting a crusade against silver; we are 
using all the silver we can take care of. We 
have used enough since 1873 to increase not only 
the total amount of money in our country, but 
to increase the per capita. We have already 
gone as far in this direction as safety would 
warrant. 

Jester : Shall we go "where passion leads or 
prudence points the way ? " 



62 THE BOOMERANG 



FALLING PRICES NOT SYNONYMOUS WITH HARD 

TIMES, BUT OF FREE TRADE AND THREATS 

OF FURTHER FREE TRADE. 

Bryan : Our opponents sometimes admit that it was 
a mistake to demonetize silver, but insist that we should 
submit to present conditions rather than return to the 
bimetallic system. They err in supposing that we have 
reached the end of the evil results of a gold standard ; 
we have not reached the end. The injury is a continu- 
ing one, and no person can say how long the world is to 
suffer from the attempt to make gold the only standard 
money. The same influences which are now operating 
to destroy silver in the United States will, if successful 
here, be turned against other silver-using countries, and 
each new convert to the gold standard will add to the 
general distress. So long as the scramble for gold con- 
tinues, prices must fall, and a general fall in prices is 
but another definition of hard times. 

Jester : " The devil can cite scripture for his 
purpose." 

Wage-workers : Again you are mistaken, 
Mr. Bryan. There are no influences brought to 
bear to destroy silver ; we are using more of it 
than ever. Notwithstanding its increased de- 
mand, the supply has so far outstripped it that 
the price has continually fallen. The natural 
law of supply and demand has forced these 
prices down and compelled the United States 
Government to guard against a silver mono- 



THE BOOMERANG 63 

metallic currency by placing the standard of 
value upon gold, which has not been subject to 
such changes. 

The falling prices which you indicate as sy- 
nonymous with hard times seem to us to be a 
result not of the lack of free silver, but of the 
presence and further threat oifree trade. Four 
years ago you stoutly insisted that lower prices 
would be a blessing and that free trade would 
bring it. Now you insist that free silver will 
bring higher prices, and that high prices are a 
blessing. In view of these contradictory state- 
ments, and especially in view of your failure to 
bring about the blessing which your former 
platform promised, we must confess a little 
hesitancy in accepting your present propositions, 
however attractive they may be. 

Jester : " Never promise more than you can 
perform," for " while promises may get friends 
it is performance that must nurse and keep 
them." 

Bryan : Our opponents, while claiming entire disin- 
terestedness for themselves, have appealed to the self- 
ishness of nearly every class of society. Recognizing 
the disposition of the individual voter to consider the 
effect of any proposed legislation upon himself, we pre- 
sent to the American people the financial policy outlined 
in the Chicago platform, believing that it will result in 
the greatest good to the greatest number. 



64 THE BOOMERANG 

Republican Party : We candidly confess 
that we are appealing to every class of society, 
just as you have just now done by your very 
language in criticising us ; and since the in- 
dividual voter will consider the effect of any 
proposed legislation upon himself, we know, as 
we have always known, that our theories must 
be so shaped that their workings will benefit all 
classes of voters. 

As an evidence of our wisdom in this cause 
we believe it would be false modesty if we 
hesitated to point with pride to our past record 
of broad, progressive patriotism, and with shame 
to the record of the Democratic party in its ad- 
ministration of class legislation and hard-times- 
production. 

WAGE-WORKERS AND FARMERS HAND IN HAND. 

Bryan : The farmers are opposed to the gold stand- 
ard because they have felt its effects. Since they sell at 
wholesale and buy at retail they have lost more than 
they have gained by falling prices, and, besides this, 
they have found that certain fixed charges have not 
fallen at all. Taxes have not been perceptibly de- 
creased, although it requires more of farm products now 
than formerly to secure the money with which to pay 
taxes. Debts have not fallen. The farmer who owed 
$1,000 is still compelled to pay $1,000, although it may 
be twice as difficult as formerly to obtain the dollars with 






THE BOOMERANG 65 

which to pay the debt. Railroad rates have not been 
reduced to keep pace with falling prices ; and besides 
these items there are many more. The farmer has thus 
found it more and more difficult to live. Has he not a 
just complaint against the gold standard ? 

Farmers : We do not quite see the force of 
your " wholesale and retail " argument, for 
don't you know that when prices rise as you 
want to have them, retail prices rise faster than 
wholesale prices ? This wa5 so during the war ; 
but maybe you have forgotten. 

We (like the wage-workers) sometimes keep 
money overnight, and we like to know that it 
will be as good in the morning as it is the night 
we get it. 

It is true that taxes and other fixed charges 
have not changed. You forgot to tell us they 
would not when you preached the great advan- 
tages that free trade would bring by lowering 
prices. If you will oblige us by giving back our 
home market we will then take our chances on 
being able to pay our taxes and our mortgages. 

It is true we have not always been divinely 
wise in determining what we should raise on our 
farms. If the price of potatoes is extremely 
high one year because of the scarcity of the crop, 
we all put in an abnormally large crop of 
potatoes the next year, with the result of an 
5 



66 THE BOOMERANG 

over-production, and a very low price. Will 
your silver proposition change this ? 

In a growing country like ours it takes a long 
time for the diversified occupations to find their 
proper proportions, and it seems that there are 
too many farmers for the number of people 
with means to buy farm products. This comes 
partly from the fact that a great many men who 
were working in shops before the shops closed, 
have now taken up farming ; and many who 
have not moved to farms are out of employment 
entirely, or working half-time and at reduced 
wages, so that they cannot buy our farm prod- 
ucts as they formerly did. 

We do not pretend to be political scholars, 
but it does seem to us (just thinking it over in a 
plain, common-sense way) that if you would give 
us protective tariff again, and put our wage- 
workers to work, even though there should be 
for a while a surplus number of farmers, we 
would be able again to sell our farm products ; 
and both our business and the business of every 
other class in the country would revive. May- 
be we are wrong, but if we are we would like to 
hear your proof of it. 

Jester : " Modest plainness sets off sprightly 
wit." 



THE BOOMERANG 6j 



WAGE-WORKERS, STOP TO THINK. 

Bryan : The wage-earners have been injured by a 
gold standard, and have expressed themselves upon the 
subject with great emphasis. In February, 1895, a peti- 
tion asking for the immediate restoration of the free and 
unlimited coinage of gold and silver at 16 to 1 was 
signed by the representatives of all, or nearly all, the 
leading labor organizations and presented to Congress. 
Wage-earners know that while a gold standard raises the 
purchasing power of the dollar it also makes it more dif- 
ficult to obtain possession of the dollar ; they know that 
employment is less permanent, loss of work more prob- 
able, and re-employment less certain. 

Jester : 
"Wise men change their minds— fools never 
do." 

Wage-workers : Some of us did sign the 
petition you refer to, but we did it a good deal 
in the same way we voted for Cleveland four 
years ago. It sounded nice and we did not 
stop to give it much thought ; in fact we had 
been told that free coinage of silver by the 
United States would give us bimetallism. We 
have since thought of the subject in all its bear- 
ings, and we have concluded that it is probably 
a mistake, and at any rate that it is an exceed- 
ingly big risk. 

If there did not exist another cause for our 



68 THE BOOMERANG 

present deplorable condition it would be much 
easier to convince us that the gold standard is 
the cause, but we remember that work was 
plenty and wages good, until all of a sudden 
that other beautiful theory which you and your 
party advocated four years ago — that other free 
proposition of yours — settled down over our 
factories like a black cloud and our work 
stopped. 

We have heard a few people say that free 
trade did not cause it, but we cannot trace it to 
any other cause ; if our factories had stopped 
and then free trade had come along it would 
look different. You are a lawyer, Mr. Bryan- 
just think of this yourself: Free trade came, 
factories stopped. Would you, as a lawyer, give 
it as your opinion that the one had anything to 
do with the other ? 
Jester : 

" A lawyer's dealings should be just and fair ; v 
Honesty shines with great advantage there." 
Wage-WORKERS : To paraphrase your own 
language with amendments, we would say that 
we (the wage-workers) know that while free 
trade discourages the activity of the dollar, " it 
also makes it more difficult for us to obtain 
possession of the dollar." We know that under 
free trade " employment is less permanent, loss 



THE BOOMERANG 69 

of work more probable, and re-employment " not 
only " less certain," but absolutely out of the 
question. 



FREE TRADE OR GOLD STANDARD THE CAUSE ? 

Bryan : A gold standard encourages the hoarding of 
money because money is rising ; it also discourages en- 
terprise and paralyzes industry. 

Bankers : Even if we grant the absurd claim 
that money has risen fifty per cent, in the last 
twenty-five years (or only two per cent, a year), 
we could not afford to hoard our money. If re- 
lations were so adjusted as to make it both safe 
and possible for us to loan it, we would realize 
double that per cent. 

But aside from this fact it is obvious that the 
laws which have forced idleness in our factories 
and destroyed the markets of our farmers, to- 
gether with the onward march of invention, 
have resulted in the lowering of prices more 
than in the raising of money. 

You are right in implying that something at 
the present time discourages and paralyzes in- 
dustry, and we as a class, and as private citizens 
of a country that ought to be great and pros- 
perous, are interested in finding out what that 
cause is. We agree with the wage-workers that 



JO THE BOOMERANG 

it is free trade which discourages enterprise and 
paralyzes industry. 

We, therefore, do not believe that the silver 
standard would relieve the paralyzed condi- 
tions ; and for this reason we are not in favor 
of a silver standard, notwithstanding the fact 
that it would enable us to pay the zvage-zvork- 
ers, who are our creditors, in a depreciated cur- 
rency. 

We would eventually lose more than we 
would gain by having all our values thrown on 
to a cheap, unsafe, and uncertain basis like that 
of the second- and third-rate nations who have 
already been caught in the alluring silver- 
threaded net. 

MONEY ANXIOUS TO WORK. 

Bryan : On the other hand, the restoration of bi- 
metallism will discourage hoarding, because when prices 
are steady or rising, money cannot afford to lie idle in 
the bank vaults. 

Jester : " Consistency, thou art a jewel." 
BANKERS: You speak of higher prices as a 
great boon to civilization, while four years ago 
you insisted that lowering prices would give us 
better times. 

Notwithstanding the fact that times were 
then good enough as compared with now, yet 



THE BOOMERANG 7 1 

we took you at your word. Now we hesitate to 
believe you. Can you blame us ? 

As a matter of simple business truth (aside 
from politics), you know that if you would let it 
be known that you wished to borrow five thou- 
sand dollars, fifty thousand dollars, or any other 
reasonable amount, on good security, the banks 
would hunt you instead of waiting for you to 
come. 

Every dollar now inactive in the vaults is 
eager to get out and do service whenever enter- 
prise and thrift will justify some business man 
or manufacturer in paying for its service. You 
know that more money would not help this 
condition, but that what is needed is more de- 
mand for the money already at hand. There- 
fore your talk about hoarding is simply non- 
sense, and has very much the appearance of 
intentional deceit. 

Bryan : The farmers and wage-earners together con- 
stitute a considerable majority of the people of the coun- 
try. Why should their interests be ignored in consider- 
ing financial legislation ? 

Republican Party: We of course agree 
with you that the farmers and wage-workers 
constitute a considerable majority of the people 
of the country, but we would like to remind you 
that these intelligent classes can safely be trusted 



7 2 THE BOOMERANG 

to decide for themselves whether it is your 
party or ours which has ignored their interests 
as affected by legislation. If these classes could 
be deprived of their memory we have no doubt 
that by reason of your strong personality — as an 
imitator of Lincoln — you could soon convince 
them that your free propositions from time to 
time have been to their interests — but they have 
not lost their memory. 

Jester : 
" Memory, the daughter of attention, is the 

teeming mother of wisdom, 
And safer is he that storeth knowledge than he 
that would make it for himself." 

Bryan : A monetary system which is pecuniarily ad- 
vantageous to a few syndicates has far less to commend 
it than a system which would give hope and encourage- 
ment to those who create the nation's wealth. 

The People : We all concur, without a dis- 
senting voice, in what you have just said. We 
most strongly object to a Cleveland Democratic 
bond syndicate, but we also object to a Bryan 
Democratic silver-mine syndicate. 

Bryan : Our opponents have made a special appeal 
to those who hold fire and life insurance policies, but 
these policy-holders know that, since the total premiums 
received exceed the total losses paid, a rising standard 
must be of more benefit to the companies than to the 
policy-holders. 



THE BOOMERANG 73 

Policy Holders: We prefer to be paid in 
money which has not a depreciated purchasing 
power, even though the same system may also 
benefit the insurance* companies. It's a wonder 
you don't discourage the use of air, because some 
people have a greater capacity for it than others. 

Jester : I destroyed the beautiful fountain in 
my garden, where I could always get a cool, re- 
freshing drink when thirsty, simply because oth- 
ers got more benefit from it than I. I got this 
idea from little Billy Bryan when we worked 
together on the farm. 

Bryan : Much solicitude has been expressed by our 
opponents for the depositors in savings banks. They 
constantly parade before these depositors the advan- 
tages of a gold standard, but these appeals will be in 
vain, because savings-bank depositors know that under 
a gold standard there is increasing danger that they will 
lose their deposits because of the inability of the banks 
to collect their assets ; and they still further know that, 
if the gold standard is to continue indefinitely, they may 
be compelled to withdraw their deposits in order to pay 
living expenses. 

Wage-workers; If you will give us an 
American system of labor we will not only feel 
safe as to our present deposits in savings banks, 
but we will once more begin to make deposits, 
which we cannot do under your Democratic 
rule. 



74 THE BOOMERANG 

Jester : I wonder if Mr. Bryan really thinks 
it, or is this what they call a political scarecrow? 

Bankers : If the gold standard meant our 
inability to collect our assets, what fools we 
would be indeed to favor the gold standard ! 
This proposition is so barren of sound reason 
that even a discussion of it is made impossible. 

Bryan : It is only necessary to note the increasing 
number of failures in order to know that a gold standard 
is ruinous to merchants and manufacturers. 

Wage- WORKERS : Let us take up the first 
part of your sentence, and finish it according to 
what we know to be the truth ; and since it is a 
mere question of belief on your part, we shall 
act upon our knowledge rather than upon your 
belief : " It is only necessary to note the in- 
creased number of failures in order to know that 
free trade is ruinous to merchants and manu- 
facturers." 

Bryan : These business men do not make their 
profits from the people from whom they borrow money, 
but from the people to whom they sell their goods. If 
the people cannot buy, retailers cannot sell ; and if re- 
tailers cannot sell, wholesale merchants and manufact- 
urers must go into bankruptcy. 

Business Men : It is not necessary to dis- 
cuss this proposition because we fully concur in 
what you have said. What we would like to 
hear you discuss is a means by which the people 



THE BOOMERANG 75 

can buy goods, and, therefore, by which we can 
sell goods, thus making ourselves prosperous 
and preventing the bankruptcy of our manufact- 
urers. We believe this can be done better by 
doing our manufacturing at home and giving 
the wage-workers, doing that manufacturing, a 
dollar for which they can purchase a dollar s 
worthy rather than by continuing to let our 
foreign friends do the manufacturing and giv- 
ing the few wage-earners kept employed in this 
country a dollar for which they can purchase 
only a half -dollar s worth. This seems plain 
to us. 

BRYAN ANXIOUS FOR THE RICH AS WELL AS 
THE POOR. 

Bryan : Those who hold, as a permanent investment, 
the stock of railroads and of other enterprises— I do not 
include those who speculate in stocks or use stockhold- 
ings as a means of obtaining an inside advantage in 
construction contracts — are injured by a gold standard. 
The rising dollar destroys the earning power of these 
enterprises without reducing their liabilities, and, as 
dividends cannot be paid until salaries and fixed charges 
have been satisfied, the stockholders must bear the bur- 
den of hard times. 

Business Men : We formed an idea by 
watching causes and effects that the earning 
power of railroads was damaged by the shrink- 



7 6 THE BOOMERANG 

age in business, brought on by a general under- 
standing at Washington that the United States 
should let up on manufacturing and let the for- 
eign countries do that. At any rate the earn- 
ing power seemed to be taking fairly good care 
of itself until this understanding at Washington 
was reached, then it was immediately impaired. 

But even if you prove that this is incorrect, 
you have yet to offer your first word of admissi- 
ble evidence that the rising dollar destroys that 
earning power. 

Wage-workers : Hold up a minute, Mr. 
Bryan, we thought you were interested only in 
the poor, and that you expected the rich bene- 
ficiaries of the gold standard would " array 
themselves " against you. Now you tell these 
rich people your scheme is for them. Can it be 
true that you believe the interests of the resi- 
dent of a Hudson villa and the poor laborer on 
the Western plains are the same ? 

WILL SALARIES RISE WITH THE RISE OF 
PRICES? 

Bryan : Salaries in business occupations depend upon 
business conditions, and the gold standard both lessens 
the amount and threatens the permanency of such 
salaries. 

Official salaries, except the salaries of those who hold 



THE BOOMERANG ^ 

office for life, must, in the long run, be adjusted to the 
.conditions of those who pay the taxes, and if the present 
financial policy continues we must expect the contest 
between the tax-payer and the tax-eater to increase in 
bitterness. 

Wage-workers : Your first statement here 
is certainly true, but in the second you attribute 
the danger to the gold standard, and here is 
where we differ from you. Judging from our 
experience we are of the opinion that our sala- 
ries will rise and be more certain of permanency 
under Republican rule than under Democratic 
rule, because the Republicans believe in giving 
all the Americans work, while the Democrats 
seem very solicitous about the welfare of for- 
eigners. Aside from this fact, we are mortally 
afraid that with your system of free silver 
(which you will admit will raise prices) our em- 
ployers would forget to raise our salaries in ac- 
cordance with the rise of prices. History shows 
that human nature is a good deal this way. 
Even if you are right in your opinion that sala- 
ries will, " in the long run," be adjusted to the 
changed conditions, we respectfully submit that 
we hesitate to have the purchasing power of our 
money cut down during that " long run." 

Jester : Mr. Bryan thinks wage - workers 
should in this connection follow out Longfel- 
low's behest, " Learn to labor and to wait." 



78 THE BOOMERANG 

The People : We pay the taxes, Mr. Bryan, 
and there is not much danger of a bitter contest 
between us and the tax-eater, as long as the tax- 
eater is prompted by patriotism such as has 
characterized the Republican leaders in all of 
their onslaughts against free work, free trade, 
and free silver. 

Bryan : The professional classes — in the main — de- 
rive their support from the producing classes, and can 
only enjoy prosperity when there is prosperity among 
those who create wealth. 

Professional Workers : This we heartily 
believe, and we are in favor of that political 
party which assures prosperity among those 
who create wealth. So far you have not con- 
vinced us that yon represent that party. 

CANNOT MAKE THE APPLICATION. 

Bryan : I have not attempted to describe the effect 
of the gold standard upon all classes ; in fact, I have 
only had time to mention a few, but each person will be 
able to apply the principles stated to his own occupa- 
tion. 

The People : We have all tried hard to ap- 
ply your principle to our several occupations, 
and the way it looks to us is simply this : 

First. If free coinage does not raise the price 
of silver to that of gold (of which we feel cer- 
tain), then we will all be paid in the cheaper of 



THE BOOMERANG 79 

the two moneys, and we have no assurance that 
the salaries or wages of those of us who work 
will consist of any more dollars of the cheaper 
kind than they now do of the dearer or more 
powerful kind. 

Second. If free silver does raise the price of 
silver to the price of gold, and at the same time 
raises the price of everything else, again we do 
not see that we will be benefited unless you can 
prove to us beyond a doubt that our salaries and 
wages will also be raised so that we can still buy 
in the higher market as many necessities as we 
can buy in the lower market. 

Thus you are wrong in saying that each of us 
will be able to " apply the principles stated to 
his own occupation." 

The only application we can possibly make of 
your theory is by imagination, and we cannot 
buy bread with imaginary dollars. 
Jester : 

" O, who can hold a fire in his hand, 
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus? 
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite, 
By bare imagination of a feast ?" 

FOOLING THE WAGE-WORKERS. 

Bryan : It must also be remembered that it is the 
desire of people generally to convert their earnings into 



80 THE BOOMERANG 

real or personal property. This being true, in consider- 
ing any temporary advantage which may come from a 
system under which the dollar rises in its purchasing 
power, it must not be forgotten that the dollar cannot 
buy more than formerly, unless property sells for less 
than formerly. Hence, it will be seen that a large por- 
tion of those who may find some pecuniary advantage in 
a gold standard will discover that their losses exceed 
their gains. 

Jester : 

" Fools, to talking ever prone, 
Are sure to make their follies known." 

Wage-workers: How is this, Mr. Bryan? 
We thought you claimed that your silver idea 
was just the thing for wage- workers, whether 
it would benefit the property owners or not ; 
but according to what you have just said, it 
seems that we who get our money and spend 
it the same day, that is, we who derive a " tem- 
porary advantage " from the increasing purchas- 
ing power of a dollar, are about the only ones 
benefited by the gold standard; and that the 
wealthier people, who put their money into 
property, are the sufferers. 

If in your effort to create enmity between us 
and the wealthier class you at the same time 
undertake to show that your free-silver idea is 
equally advantageous to all classes, you put 
yourself under the necessity of extreme care 



THE BOOMERANG 8 1 

lest inconsistency creep in, and if you want to 
succeed in getting us down on capital you made 
a great mistake in the above argument, which 
shows that we now have the best of it. 

If this hair-splitting theory applies to us, then 
our loss can exceed our gain only in the event 
of our investing more than half of our wages in 
real or personal property. Do you think we do 
that ? 

Even under the McKinley law of protection 
we were well content to save, as a permanent in- 
vestment, ten to twenty per cent, of our earn- 
ings, letting the other eighty or ninety per cent, 
go for a comfortable living. 

A careful reading of what you have just said, 
Mr. Bryan, must show anyone that you are 
making a powerful point against free silver as 
affecting the great poor and middle class ; and 
it convinces us that so far as we are concerned 
we had better continue to reap the "temporary 
advantage " which you grant is afforded by the 
gold standard. 

JESTER : " He draweth out the thread of his 
verbosity finer than the staple of his argument." 

Bryan : It is sometimes asserted by our opponents 

that a bank belongs to the debtor class, but this is not 

true of any solvent bank. Every statement published 

by a solvent bank shows that the assets exceed the lia- 

6 



%2 THE BOOMERANG 

bilities. That is to say, while the bank owes a large 
amount of money to its depositors, it not only has 
enough on hand in money and notes to pay its deposi- 
tors, but in addition thereto has enough to cover its 
capital and surplus. When the dollar is rising in value 
slowly a bank may, by making short-time loans and 
taking good security, avoid loss, but when prices are 
falling rapidly, the bank is apt to lose more because of 
bad debts than it can gain by the increase in the pur- 
chasing power of its capital and surplus. 

Jester : 

" Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin 
As self-neglecting." 

Depositors : We consist largely of wage- 
workers. It is true that some of us deposit large 
amounts, but, considered in point of numbers, 
the small depositors among us are in the great 
majority; and regardless of the kind of money 
the bank may be able to get from its creditors, 
we feel that it is to our interest to help keep a 
condition that will enable us to get the best 
money there is from the bank, which is our 
debtor. Whether the bank be a debtor or a 
creditor, after their books are balanced, we know 
that so far as it affects us, the bank is the 
debtor. 

Bankers : If we believed your argument, Mr. 
Bryan, that the gold standard were responsible 
for falling prices, and that the result would be 



THE BOOMERANG 83 

general shrinkage and bad debts, do you not 
suppose that we would favor some sort of abro- 
gation of that gold standard ? Are we such un- 
natural beings (you seem to think we are bad 
men) that we would urge a condition which is 
against our own interests ? 

We know that your law above laid down to 
the professional class is applicable to us. We 
too can only be prosperous when there is gen- 
eral prosperity. We are therefore in favor of 
such protection of American interests as will 
give us that general prosperity, 

Bryan : It must be admitted, however, that some 
bankers combine the business of a bond broker with the 
ordinary banking business, and these may make enough 
in the negotiation of loans to offset the losses arising in 
legitimate banking business. 

Bankers : It is true that under free-silver rule 
with the constant fluctuation between gold and 
silver (which you admit would exist, and which 
you claim would be beneficial) we of all people, 
would stand the best show to protect ourselves 
against loss, and to reap the benefit from the 
loss of others. We would be in a position to 
watch the markets, anticipate the changes, and 
constantly take advantage of the margins. 

Working under that system, bankers would 
have a great opportunity to " combine the busi- 



84 THE BOOMERANG 

ness of a broker with the ordinary banking busi- 
ness." Your system would encourage that sort 
of thing, yet our final disadvantage comes in the 
fact that the whole nation would drop from its 
high position in the first class to the humble 
position among the nations of the second or third 
class. 

Is it conceivable to you that bankers would 
be benefited by a condition which would move 
back the hands on the clock of progress ? Is 
the lower civilization more attractive to us than 
a higher ? If so, and we be devoid of patriot- 
ism, then may you not expect that we shall rise 
up in our might and oppose all efforts looking to 
the improvement of our common-school system, 
and all measures which in any way foster and 
build up a higher degree of civilization ? 

It is not for us to say that we are patriotic. 
The action of our class in standing back of the 
United States Treasury during the perilous days 
of war may possibly be refreshing to one who 
has listened to your communistic disquisitions 
on bankers. 

We may, however, claim for ourselves a rea- 
sonable degree of humanity, at least so far as it 
affects our posterity. Is it likely that we would 
be in favor of any political system that would 
jeopardize the stability of the property of those 



THE BOOMERANG 85 

to follow us ? Is it likely that we would desire 
to inscribe upon our monuments an epitaph 
which would characterize us as unnatural, in- 
human, and wholly wanting in our appreciation 
of the interests of our children and our children's 
children ? 

Impelled by selfish motives alone, therefore, 
we could not possibly be in favor of the present 
monetary system if we did not believe it to be 
the best which civilization has thus far devised; 
and in appealing to the people as a whole we 
respectfully pit our judgment as to what is best, 
financially, against your judgment, Mr. Bryan ; 
and we also make bold to oppose our motives 
(which can be founded on nothing more than 
the stability of values) against your motives, 
which consist both of a desire for pecuniary 
gain and what is most difficult of all to con- 
trol — an ambition to rule. 

Bryan : As long as human nature remains as it is 
there will always be danger that unless restrained by 
public opinion or legal enactment, those who see a 
pecuniary profit for themselves in a certain condition 
may yield to the temptation to bring about that condi- 
tion. Jefferson has stated that one of the main duties 
of government is to prevent men from injuring one 
another, and never was that duty more important than 
it is to-day. 

Republican Party: These are precisely 



86 THE BOOMERANG 

our sentiments, and we propose to prevent the 
Democratic party and the clique of silver-mine 
owners from injuring the wage-workers and the 
farmers of the country; and in preventing this 
wholesale sin we shall do good to all mankind 
by lifting this nation higher in the scale of civ- 
ilization instead of allowing it to fall lower. 

Bryan : It is not strange that those who have made 
a profit by furnishing gold to the Government in the 
hour of its extremity, favor a financial policy which will 
keep the Government dependent upon them. I believe, 
however, that I speak the sentiment of the vast majority 
of the people of the United States when I say that a 
wise financial policy administered in behalf o1 all the 
people would make our Government independent of 
any combination of financiers, foreign or domestic. 

The People : But, Mr. Bryan, we do not 
blame our system of money for the private con- 
tract with the bond syndicate. Such things 
were never found necessary under a Republican 
rule. 

It is true that the Republicans issued bonds 
to raise money to put down the Democratic re- 
bellion ; this seemed necessary, but they sold 
the bonds direct to the people. 

No set of moneyed men could cajole Mr. 
Lincoln into making a private bond contract as 
Mr. Morgan and his associates did Mr. Cleve- 
land. 



THE BOOMERANG S 1 / 

History proves beyond all question that we 
have a financial system which, when adminis- 
tered in behalf of the people (as was done under 
Republican administration), does make " our 
Government independent of any combination of 
financiers, foreign or domestic." 

DANGER OF CONTRACTION. 

Bryan : Let me say a word now in regard to certain 
persons who are pecuniarily benefited by a gold stand- 
ard, and who favor it, not from a desire to trespass upon 
the right of others, but because the circumstances which 
surround them blind them to the effect of the gold 
standard upon others. I shall ask you to consider the 
language of two gentlemen whose long public and high 
standing in the party to which they belong will protect 
them from adverse criticism by our opponents. In 
1869 Senator Sherman said: "The contraction of the 
currency is a far more distressing operation than sena- 
tors suppose. Our own and other nations have gone 
through that operation before. It is not possible to take 
that voyage without the sorest distress. To every per- 
son, except a capitalist out of debt, or a salaried offi- 
cer or annuitant, it is a period of loss, danger, lassitude 
of trade, fall of wages, suspension of enterprise, bank- 
ruptcy, and disaster. It means ruin to all dealers whose 
debts are twice their business capital, though one-third 
less than their actual property. It means the fall of all 
agricultural production without any great reduction of 
taxes. What prudent man would dare to build a house, 



88 THE BOOMERANG 

a railroad, a factory, or a barn with this certain fact be- 
fore him ? " As I have said before, the salaried officer 
referred to must be the man whose salary is fixed for 
life, and not the man whose salary depends upon busi- 
ness conditions. When Mr. Sherman describes con- 
traction of the currency as disastrous to all the people 
except the capitalist out of debt and those who stand 
in a position similar to his, he is stating a truth which 
must be apparent to every person who will give the mat- 
ter careful consideration. Mr. Sherman was at that 
time speaking of the contraction of the volume of paper 
currency, but the principle which he set forth applies, 
if there is a contraction of the volume of the standard 
money of the world. 

The People : In quoting Mr. Sherman you 
should take into consideration the fact that in 
1869 the country had not recovered from the 
terrors and devastations of war. 

Also consider that in 1879 Mr. Sherman fa- 
vored and brought about the resumption of 
specie payments, which did result in a healthy 
contraction of the currency which the country 
then needed and was able to stand. 

Also take into consideration that the defence 
of the gold standard does not involve the idea 
of contraction, inasmuch as the amount of 
money in use has increased by the continued 
coinage of gold and silver and the continued 
improvements in the methods of commercial 
exchange. 



THE BOOMERANG 89 

Then may we not be indulged in again ex- 
pressing to you our suspicion and fear (notwith- 
standing your child-like /^V^ to the contrary) 
that the immediate result of free coinage of 
silver would be a most appalling contraction of 
the currency ? 

First. Your mints are not likely to turn out 
more than 100 millions of silver a year ; they 
will have to double their present capacity to do 
that. 

Second. The $600,000,000 of gold already in 
use in the United States will hide itself beyond 
the reach of commerce before your first 100 
millions of silver are coined. 

Third. The element of confidence which 
makes possible the use of checks, bills of ex- 
change, drafts, notes, etc., as ninety-five per cent, 
of our means of exchange, will be impaired and 
shorn of most of its usefulness. We shudder 
at the imagination of such possibilities ! 

It is impossible to think of enough people 
being mad at one time to bring about such hu- 
miliating disgrace, such abject dishonor, such 
grovelling national prostitution. 

If there be any among us who would aid in 
this wholesale infamy, let him not think the 
secret ballot will hide his blush of shame; for 
he will be mocked by panic and death of enter- 



go THE BOOMERANG 

prise, by frowns of distress and curses of actual 
misery and want; and amid this veritable car- 
nival of woe he will stand self-accused and self- 
condemned. In his delirium of grief he will 
hear the hopeless appeals of wife and children, 
the mad ravings of friends, and the dying moans 
of an outraged nation. 
Jester : 
" When people once are in the wrong, 
Each line they add is much too long; 
Who fastest walks, but walks astray, 
Is only furthest from his way." 

ALMOST LIKE DISHONESTY. 

Bryan : Mr. Blaine discussed the same principle in 
connection with the demonetization of silver. Speaking 
in the House of Representatives, on the 7th of February, 
1878, he said : "I believe the struggle now going on in 
this country and other countries for a single gold stand- 
ard would, if successful, produce wide-spread disaster in 

Note. — Ex-Governor Cornell (of New York) in his open 
letter to Mr. Bryan has lifted the veil of the future, and, like an 
inspired prophet, gives a warning full of wisdom. In that 
letter he says : 

" . . . The approval of your views by the people, at the 
approaching election, would bring upon us the most serious 
calamity which it is now possible to apprehend. No foreign 
war could begin to do our country so much harm as the accept- 
ance of your views by the people of the United States." 



THE BOOMERANG 9 1 

and throughout the commercial world. The destruction 
of silver as money, and the establishment of gold as the 
sole unit of value, must have a ruinous effect on all 
forms of property, except those invested which yield a 
fixed return in money. These would be enormously en- 
hanced in value, and would gain a disproportionate and 
unfair advantage over every other species of property." 
Is it strange that the "holders of investments which 
yield a fixed return in money " can regard the destruc- 
tion of silver with complacency ? May we not expect 
the holders of other forms of property to protest against 
giving to money a " disproportionate and unfair advan- 
tage over every other species of property ? " 

Jester : 

" If you were born to honor, show it now ; 
If put upon you, make the judgment good 
That thought you worthy of it." 

Uncle Sam : I expect you, sir, to represent 
men honestly. In the same year in which you 
quote Mr. Blaine, relief was brought to silver by 
the Bland-Allison Act, which gave an extra de- 
mand for two millions per month ; or more in a 
single year than had been demanded by free 
and unlimited coinage for eighty years prior to 
1 873, and yet silver continued to decline in value. 
But, Mr. Bryan, if you had been fair enough to 
quote Mr. Blaine fully, or to explain his posi- 
tion on the silver question, you would have 
proved to us that he opposed free coinage at 
any ratio other than the market ratio with gold, 



92 THE BOOMERANG 

and also opposed a futile attempt at bimetallism, 
except by international agreement. Here is 
what he said upon the subject in his speech on 
February 7, 1878, in the Senate (not in the 
House, as you say) : 

" At current rates of silver, the free coin- 
age of a dollar, containing 412^ grains, gives an 
illegitimate profit to the owner of the bullion, 
enabling him to take ninety-two cents' worth of 
it to the mint and get it stamped as coin, and 
force his neighbor to take it for a full dollar. 
This is an undue and unfair advantage which 
the Government has no right to give to the 
owner of silver bullion, and which defrauds the 
man who is forced to take the dollar." 

And again in the same speech : 

" What gain, therefore, would we make for the 
circulating medium, if, on opening the gates for 
silver to flow in, we open a still wider gate for 
gold to flow out ? If I were to venture upon a 
dictum upon the silver question, I should de- 
clare that until Europe remonetizes silver we 
cannot afford to coin a dollar as low as 412^ 
grains." 

If this leaves any doubt of his opposition to a 
cheap dollar, let us quote you his own account 
of that Senate debate : 

" Mr. Blaine submitted an argument ' that 



THE BOOMERANG 93 

gold and silver are the money of the Constitu- 
tion, the money in existence when the Consti- 
tution was formed, and Congress has the right 
to regulate their relations.' He favored a coin- 
age of 'such a silver dollar as will not only do 
justice among our citizens at home, but prove 
an absolute barricade against the gold mono- 
metallists.' He did not believe that '412^ 
grains of silver would make such a dollar.' " 

" . . . Amendments offered by Mr. Eaton, 
Mr. Christiancy, Mr. Blaine, and Mr. Cam- 
eron, of Wisconsin, to increase the amount of 
silver in the coin, so as to approximate it to the 
value of the gold dollar, were severally rejected 
by large majorities."— From "Blaine's Twenty 
Years in Congress," Vol. II., pp. 606 and 607. 

If Mr. Blaine opposed free silver then, when 
4 I2 K grains of silver were worth ninety-two 
cents, what would be his horror to find a body 
of men trying to foist such a theory on to the 
people now, in the light of a hopeless disparity 
in the price of gold and silver ? 

Bryan : If the relatively few whose wealth consists 
largely in fixed investments have a right to use the bal- 
lot to enhance the value of their investments, have not 
the rest of the people the right to use the ballot to pro- 
tect themselves from the disastrous consequences of a 
rising standard ? 

The People: But, Mr. Bryan, you were 



94 THE BOOMERANG 

showing us a few minutes ago how we, the "peo- 
ple generally," are wont to convert our earnings 
into real or personal property, both of which are 
fixed investments. Now you seem to imply 
that the comparatively few are interested in 
fixed investments — a small matter, but it leaves 
us in some doubt as to where we stand. 

From the best we can judge of your " hope " 
and " belief " and " conviction " for the results 
of free silver, you rather think it will favor the 
debtor more than the creditor ; and although 
your theory is based on wild guess-work, yet by 
your own general admission that creditors would 
suffer, we are convinced that most of us would 
suffer, because there are more creditors than 
debtors. 

We fully agree with you that we have the 
right to use the ballot to protect ourselves from 
any disastrous consequences, but we do not re- 
gret a slight tendency of the increase in the pur- 
chasing power of a day's wages or a day's salary, 
so much as we should regret a decrease, since 
most of us work for wages or salaries ; at least 
if it be a disaster, we will choose rather " those 
ills we have than fly to others that we know 
not of." 

Jester : Yes, there is no gain to " jump from 
the frying-pan into the fire." 



THE BOOMERANG 95 

Bryan : The people who must purchase money with 
the products of toil stand in a position entirely different 
from the position of those who own money or receive a 
fixed income. The well-being of the nation — aye, of 
civilization — depends upon the prosperity of the masses. 

Uncle Sam : We would suggest, Mr. Bryan, 
that you write out the statement you have just 
made, and read it over carefully. If it is true 
(as is most certain to us) that the " well-being 
of the nation depends upon the prosperity of 
the masses," then the preceding statement, im- 
plying that the owners of wealth stand in a dif- 
ferent position from that of the producers of 
wealth, cannot be true. 

Jester : 
" Ah, how unjust to Nature and himself 

Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man." 

Bryan : What shall it profit us to have a dollar which 
grows more valuable every day if such a dollar lowers 
the standard of civilization and brings distress to the 
people ? 

Jester : I've heard it said " It's a poor rule 
that won't work both ways." 

Wage-workers : We might change your 
question slightly and make it read : Which will 
profit us most — to have a dollar which grows 
more valuable every day, or a dollar which 
grows less valuable every day ? And will a 
dollar which grows more valuable lower the 



g6 THE BOOMERANG 

standard of civilization and bring distress to the 
people, when an overwhelming majority of the 
people use the rising dollar on the day they get 
it, and are absolutely sure of getting a dollar's 
worth for it ? Or would distress and a lower 
standard of civilization more likely follow the 
use of a falling dollar, which that overwhelming 
majority must use at a purchasing power of 
something less than a dollar? 

DEMOCRATS POOR FINANCIERS. 

Bryan : What shall it profit us if in trying to raise 
our credit by increasing the purchasing power of our 
dollar, we destroy our ability to pay the debts already 
contracted by lowering the purchasing power of the 
products with which those debts must be paid ? 

The People : It would profit us nothing if 
such dire results should follow ; but you have 
not proved it yet. 

We would like a word from Uncle Sam as to 
Democratic experience at the national purse- 
strings. 

Uncle Sam: Now, my boy, I propose to 
speak very plainly to you. You have brought 
up the subject of our ability to pay debts. The 
conduct of your party so far has been rather dis- 
couraging to me on the question of managing 
finances. You personally could only know by 



THE BOOMERANG 97 

reading history some of the facts to which I 
wish to call your attention. During Buchan- 
an's administration the Democratic manage- 
ment compelled me to run the country into debt 
enormously to pay current expenses ; and when 
Mr. Lincoln became President the Government 
was in very poor shape indeed to face an ex- 
pensive war. Have you any idea how we raised 
the necessary money to meet the urgent needs 
of the Government ? It may be interesting to 
you to know that it was done by the Morrill 
Tariff Act. Notwithstanding the largely de- 
creased imports by reason of home industry, 
this measure increased our revenues so as to give 
us means for current expenses, as well as some- 
thing to base our credit upon, when, a little later, 
we had occasion to borrow large sums to defray 
the expenses of the war. 

Of course the Republican party had some 
pretty hard times to get along financially, but 
they managed to pull through ; and after the 
enormous outlay of the Rebellion had ceased, 
their wise legislation again placed the business 
of the country on such a foundation that I was 
soon able to begin paying off that war debt, and 
I continued, amid the almost unbroken pros- 
perity of all my people, until my people yielded 
to the entreaties of the Democratic party and 
? 



98 THE BOOMERANG 

again placed them in power. Then what hap- 
pened ? Why, just as in Buchanan's adminis- 
tration, they began to run behind again. I do 
not need to refresh your memory upon the 
events of the past few years, for you were one 
of the campaign orators who urged me and my 
people to let the Democrats get a whack at the 
enormous surplus which the Republicans had 
allowed to pile up in the Treasury. I did not 
dream that you would both use up that surplus, 
and also run me in debt $260,000,000 more, or 
I should have made a most earnest protest 
against your efforts ; but it is too late to stop 
that now. My energies shall now be directed 
toward putting the Republicans back into power, 
so that these enormous expenses can be stopped 
and we can once more begin to pay off the na- 
tional debt. 

If I were of a suspicious nature (but they say 
I am ingenuous) I might suspect that there was 
a gigantic conspiracy against labor in the action 
of the Democratic financiers during Buchan- 
an's administration, in so depleting the Treas- 
ury and reducing the credit of the country as to 
make me almost powerless to stop a rebellious 
attack on the Union, which was at the same 
time being planned by the same Democratic 
party. I might also suspect that the action of 



THE BOOMERANG 99 

the Democratic party in 1893, in passing such 
tariff laws as to again deplete the Treasury, and 
in some measure destroy our credit, had in 
mind such a weakening of my forces as to 
make it impossible for me to resist another 
attack upon the best interests of the Union — 
not that of sustaining free work (which means 
slavery), but free silver, which, combined with 
free trade, means seven-eighths slavery ; but I 
will leave this question for the judgment of my 
people — I, myself, am naturally good-humored 
and long-suffering, and am loath to declare my- 
self too frankly, believing, as I do, in the abid- 
ing good judgment of the American voters. 
Charity compels me to say, however, that these 
were not conspiracies, but only evidences of 
incompetency and false legislative logic. 

Bryan : If it is asserted, as it constantly is asserted, 
that the gold standard will enable us to borrow more 
money from abroad, I reply that the restoration of bi- 
metallism will restore the parity between money and 
property, and thus permit an era of prosperity which will 
enable the American people to become loaners of money 
instead of perpetual borrowers. Even if we desire to 
borrow, how long can we continue borrowing under a 
system which, by lowering the value of property, weak- 
ens the foundation upon which credit rests ? 

The People : But, Mr. Bryan, the Repub- 
lican plan of protecting American industry and 



100 THE BOOMERANG 

arranging reciprocity treaties with foreign coun- 
tries, enabled us to borrow money abroad when 
we needed it, to pay it back after the necessity 
was over; but, in fact, prosperity was so univer- 
sal among us that there was never any need 
of borrowing, except in time of war ; can your 
free-silver idea give us any better conditions 
than these? Here, as in most all of your utter- 
ances, you seem to have founded your argument 
upon the wrong theory; you have mistaken the 
effect of free trade for the effect of a sound 
airrency. 

You have not sounded political history to its 
depths, not to speak of political economy. 

Jester : 
" Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow, 

He who would search for pearls must dive 
below." 

BRYAN'S MOTIVE. 

Bryan : Even the holders of fixed investments, 
though they gain an advantage from the appreciation ot 
the dollar, certainly see the injustice of the legislation 
which gives them this advantage over those whose in- 
comes depend upon the value of property and products. 
If the holders of fixed investments will not listen to 
arguments based upon justice and equity, I appeal to 
them to consider the interests of posterity. 

Wage- WORKERS : After attempting to show 



THE BOOMERANG 10 1 

us that we, " the people generally," are wont to 
" convert our earnings into real or personal prop- 
erty," which are certainly " fixed investments," 
and that the gold standard is against our inter- 
ests for that reason, now you again admit that 
the gold standard benefits the holders of fixed 
investments. In either case not only the inter- 
ests of our posterity, but our own interests as 
well, compel us to feel friendly toward that sys- 
tem of finance which appeals to high civiliza- 
tion. Certainly when we appoint administra- 
tors for our children we shall choose them from 
the men whose ideas are of the first class rather 
than the second class. 

We feel justified in saying, at any rate, that our 
motive in making a choice is one of patriotism 
and prosperity, while it is not too much to sus- 
pect, at least, that you, in your anxiety to be- 
come President, might be prompted by other 
motives less commendable. 

Bryan : We do not live for ourselves alone ; our 
labor, our self-denial, and our anxious care— all these 
are for those who are to come after us, as much as for 
ourselves, but we cannot protect our children beyond 
the period of our lives. 

The People : This is precisely what we be- 
lieve, and it is for this reason that we are study- 
ins: with a view to determining which of the 



102 THE BOOMERANG 

parties will give to all our values the greatest 
stability, and to all our enterprises the greatest 
prosperity. 

Bryan : Let those who are now reaping advantage 
from a vicious financial system remember that, in the 
years to come, their own children and their children's 
children may, through the operation of this same system, 
be made to pay tribute to the descendants of those who 
are wronged to-day. 

The People : Is our present system of fi- 
nance vicious, or is it the best known to high 
civilization ? This is the question, and it is 
high time you prove your insinuation that it is 
vicious. In all liberal and charitable candor we 
declare you have proved nothing yet, 

OLD EXPERIMENT FOUND WANTING. 

Bryan : As against the maintenance of a gold stand- 
ard, either permanently or until other nations can be 
united for its overthrow, the Chicago platform presents 
a clear and emphatic demand for the immediate restora- 
tion of the free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold 
at the present legal ratio of 16 to i, without waiting for 
the aid or consent of any other nation. We are not ask- 
ing that a new experiment be tried ; we are insisting 
upon a return to a financial policy approved by the ex- 
perience of history and supported by all the prominent 
statesmen of our nation from the days of the first Presi- 
dent down to 1873. 



THE BOOMERANG J 03 

UNCLE Sam : Be careful, be careful, young 
man ; do not attempt to misguide my people 
by false deductions from history. You must be 
aware that the other governments besides our 
own, which are on a so-called independent bime- 
tallic basis, are really on a silver basis, and for 
that reason assume a place among the second- 
and third-class nations of the earth. 

You are also aware, and should be frank 
enough to say, that during the free - coinage 
era in the United States, up to 1873, the great- 
est care was always taken to keep the legal ratio 
of gold and silver at precisely the market ratio 
of gold and silver bullion, and that only about 
$8,000,000 worth of silver was brought to the 
mints of the United States for coinage during 
our entire history up to 1873— «*' enough to 
make it difficult to maintain a parity between 
the two metals. 

You also know that fear of the uncertainty of 
the value of silver— in fact a knowledge of that 
uncertainty— caused the United States Govern- 
ment to come out squarely and declare that as 
an absolute surety of the continued parity be- 
tween gold and silver, we would stand ready to 
exchange a gold dollar for a silver dollar. 
With such safeguards thrown around it we were 
able to continue the coinage of silver, and still 



104 THE BOOMERANG 

keep every one of our dollars as good as any 
other. 

As an evidence of the continued and growing 
supply of silver in excess of its universal de- 
mand, we were able to purchase, at greatly re- 
duced prices, enough silver to coin over $600,- 
000,000 since 1873, and notwithstanding this 
enormous increase of the use of silver its price 
continued to fall. 

No, indeed, you are not asking for a new ex- 
periment, but what is still worse, in my opin- 
ion, you are asking for an old experiment over 
again, which has proved damaging and degrad- 
ing to every nation which has tried it. 

Jester : The bad examples of others should 
be good examples for us. 

Bryan : When we ask that our mints be opened to 
the free and unlimited coinage of silver into full legal- 
tender money, we are simply asking that the same mint 
privileges be accorded to silver that are now accorded 
to gold. When we ask that this coinage be at the ratio 
of 16 to 1, we simply ask that our gold coins and the 
standard silver dollar — which, be it remembered, con- 
tains the same amount of pure silver as the first silver 
dollar coined at our mints — retain their present weight 
and fineness. 

Uncle Sam : These remarks have a tendency 
to mislead the unthinking. Our mints do not 
admit gold except at its market value. If they 



THE BOOMERANG 105 

stamped five dollars worth of gold and at- 
tempted to put it out as ten dollars, then your 
demand that silver be given a mint value 
double its market value would have a good 
foundation, but such is not the case ; the Gov- 
ernment stamp can do no more for gold than to 
say $1 in gold bullion equals $1 in money; 
likewise it can say no more of silver than that 
$1 in silver bullion equals $1 in money. 

A MISLEADING METAPHOR. 

Bryan : The theoretical advantage of the bimetallic 
system is best stated by a European writer on political 
economy, who suggests the following illustrations : A 
river fed from two sources is more uniform in volume 
than a river fed from one source— the reason being that 
when one of the feeders is swollen, the other may be 
low ; whereas, a river which has but one feeder must 
rise or fall with that feeder. So in the case of bimetal- 
lism, the volume of metallic money receives contribu- 
tions from both the gold mines and the silver mines, 
and, therefore, varies less ; and the dollar, resting upon 
two metals, is less changeable in its purchasing power 
than the dollar which rests on one only. 

The People: In the illustration given, you 
deal with two radically different conditions. 
All you prove is that there are instances in 
which two of a kind are better than one. This 
broad principle is admitted ; but it is equally 



106 THE BOOMERANG 

true that in other instances one is better than 
two of the same. All will admit that a man is 
better off with two legs, two arms, or two eyes, 
but does that prove that he can come nearer to 
a proper solution of the financial question if he 
has also two minds ? 

But, again, your European writer speaks of 
bimetallism. You have yet before you the 
tedious task of proving that free coinage of 
silver, by the independent act of the United 
States, would result in bimetallism. So far we 
have heard no proof of this. 

MONEY UP AND DOWN. 

Bryan : If there are two kinds of money, the option 
must rest either with the debtor or with the creditor. 
Assuming that their rights are equal, we must look at 
the interests of society in general in order to determine 
to which side the option should be given. Under the 
bimetallic system, gold and silver are linked together by 
law at a fixed ratio, and any person or persons owning 
any quantity of either metal can have the same con- 
verted into full legal-tender money. If the creditor has 
the right to choose the metal in which payment shall be 
made, it is reasonable to suppose that he will require 
the debtor to pay in the dearer metal if there is any per- 
ceptible difference between the bullion values of the 
metals. This new demand created for the dearer metal 
will make that metal dearer still, while the decreased 






THE BOOMERANG 107 

demand for the cheaper metal will make that metal 
cheaper still. If, on the other hand, the debtor exer- 
cises the option, it is reasonable to suppose that he will 
pay in the cheaper metal if one metal is perceptibly 
cheaper than the other ; but the demand thus created 
for the cheaper metal will raise its price, while the 
lessened demand for the dearer metal will lower its 
price. In other words, when the creditor has the option, 
the metals are drawn apart ; whereas, when the debtor 
has the option, the metals are held together approx- 
imately at the ratio fixed by law ; provided the demand 
created is sufficient to absorb all of both metals pre- 
sented at the mint. 

Society is therefore interested in having the option 
exercised by the debtor. Indeed, there can be no such 
thing as real bimetallism unless the option is exercised 
by the debtor. The exercise of the option by the 
debtor compels the creditor classes, whether domestic 
or foreign, to exert themselves to maintain the parity 
between gold and silver at the legal ratio, whereas they 
might find a profit in driving one of the metals to a 
premium if they could then demand the dearer metal. 

Wage-workers : This strikes us pretty 
hard, Mr. Bryan. We are the creditors, our 
employers the debtors. Five-sixths of the time 
they owe us for from one to six days' labor. 
You are putting mischief into their heads ; you 
propose a kind of money — rather two kinds — 
which will fluctuate in value — gold the most 
valuable to-day, and silver to-morrow. Then 
you propose to give our debtor-employers the 



108 THE BOOMERANG 

option of paying us on Saturday night which- 
ever money happens to be the cheaper. 

Let us think this over a minute : We will say 
A is the employer, and B (one of our number) 
is the employee at $15 per week. On Saturday 
night let us suppose that gold- is up, and that 
$15 in silver is worth only $14 in gold. B is 
paid in the cheaper money, Mr. Bryan, by 
your choice; B goes to the market and lays in 
supplies for the week, makes a small payment 
on his Building and Loan, and his money is spent 
— at least nearly all of it. Since he must spend 
it the day he gets it he must stand the discount 
which rests on silver that day ; for in selling him 
family necessaries the merchant will know what 
kind of money to expect before he fixes the 
price. Thus, B gets an actual value of $14 for 
his $15 worth of labor — with the slight excep- 
tion of the small per cent, of his week's wages 
which he uses as a debtor in making his Build- 
ing and Loan payment. 

Now what is the effect on A ? Note care- 
fully : A sells his manufactured product, get- 
ting for it the cheaper money, because he can 
get more of it ; A then keeps this cheap money 
until, by your automatic fluctuation process, sil- 
ver goes to a premium, when he exchanges it at 
the bank for a larger amount of the now cheap- 



THE BOOMERANG IO9 

ened gold, with which to pay B another week's 
salary, since by this time $15 of gold has depreci- 
ated until it is actually worth say but $14 of silver. 
The point is simply this : We wage-workers 
must spend our money the day we get it — there- 
fore at the time it has the least purchasing 
power— while the capitalist can hold the cheap 
money until the next turn in the market, then 
exchange it, and by keeping up this process of 
playing " fast and loose " with his employees 
and the money market, make a brokerage profit, 
aside from a profit on his legitimate business ; 
and if you want our opinion as to why the cap- 
italist should not then prefer free coinage of 
silver, we are frank to say that we believe 
that he is interested in a stable government 
that promises perpetuity which is incompati- 
ble with your populistic theory of inflation. 
Furthermore, our employers do not attribute 
the shutting of their shops and general depres- 
sion of trade to the present gold standard, but 
to the free-trade policy inaugurated by your own 
party. We are confident also that capitalists 
are not anxious to encourage unnecessary quar- 
rels between themselves and us ; and lastly, we 
would say that notwithstanding the gross insin- 
uation of demagogues, we believe that most em- 
ployers of wage-workers are patriotic men. 



HO THE BOOMERANG 

NATIONAL HONOR PRESERVED. 

BRYAN : The right of the debtor to choose the coin 
in which payment shall be made extends to obligations 
due from the Government as well as to contracts be- 
tween individuals. A Government obligation is simply 
a debt due from all the people to one of the people, 
and it is impossible to justify a policy which makes the 
interests of the one person who holds the obligation 
superior to the rights of the many who must be taxed to 
pay it. When, prior to 1873, silver was at a premium, 
it was never contended that national honor required the 
payment of Government obligations in silver, and the 
Matthews resolution, adopted by Congress in 1878, ex- 
pressly asserted the right of the United States to re- 
deem coin obligations in standard silver dollars as well 
as in gold coin. 

Upon this subject the Chicago platform reads : " We 
are opposed to the policy and practice of surrendering 
to the holders of the obligations of the United States 
the option reserved by law to the Government of re- 
deeming such obligations in either silver coin or gold 
coin." 

It is constantly assumed by some that the United 
States notes, commonly called greenbacks, and the 
Treasury notes, issued under the act of 1890, are re- 
sponsible for the recent drain upon the gold reserve, 
but this assumption is entirely without foundation. 
Secretary Carlisle appeared before the House Commit- 
tee on Appropriations on January 21, 1895, and I quote 
from the printed report of his testimony before the com- 
mittee : 



THE BOOMERANG III 

Mr. Sibley : " I would like to ask you (perhaps not 
entirely connected with the matter under discussion) 
what objection there could be to having the option of 
redeeming either in silver or gold lie with the Treasury 
instead of the note-holder ? " 

Secretary Carlisle : "If that policy had been adopted 
at the beginning of resumption — and I am not saying 
this for the purpose of criticising the action of any of 
my predecessors, or anybody else— but if the policy of 
reserving to the Government, at the beginning of re- 
sumption, the option of redeeming in gold or silver all 
its paper presented, I believe it would have worked 
beneficially, and there would have been no trouble 
growing out of it ; but the Secretaries of the Treasury 
from the beginning of resumption have pursued a policy 
of redeeming in gold or silver, at the option of the 
holder of the paper, and if any secretary had afterward 
attempted to change that policy and force silver upon a 
man who wanted gold, or gold upon a man who wanted 
silver, and especially if he had made that attempt at 
such a critical period as we have had in the last two 
years, my judgment is it would have been very disas- 
trous." 

I do not agree with the Secretary that it was wise to 
follow a bad precedent, but from his answer it will be 
seen that the fault does not lie with the greenbacks and 
Treasury notes, but rather with the executive officers 
who have seen fit to surrender a right which should have 
been exercised for the protection of the interests of the 
people. This executive action has already been made 
the excuse for the issue of more than $250,000,000 in 
bonds, and it is impossible to estimate the amount of 



112 THE BOOMERANG 

bonds which may hereafter be issued if this policy is 
continued. We are told that any attempt upon the part 
of the Government at this time to redeem its obliga- 
tions in silver would put a premium upon gold, but 
why should it? The Bank of France exercises the 
right to redeem all bank paper in either gold or silver, 
and yet France maintains the parity between gold and 
silver at the ratio of 15^2 to 1, and retains in circulation 
more silver per capita than we do in the United 
States. 

The People : In answer to all this, Mr. 
Bryan, it is sufficient to say that the Republi- 
can party, in all its legislative acts bearing upon 
the subject, have sought to encourage the high- 
est type of individual honor by setting the ex- 
ample of exalted national honor, and when it 
was seen that there was danger of our proffering 
to a national creditor a dollar which might not 
be in fact zfull dollar, this party with one voice 
and one accord said : " No ! no ! We will 
stamp our everlasting censure upon any such 
tendency, and will throw all the safeguards nec- 
essary around our public credit ; we will assure 
every individual and every nation that we are 
not only willing and able, but that we are 
anxious to pay every dollar of our debt in the 
best money of the highest civilization" 

If this is wrong, then a new code of ethics and 
of morals must be set up to govern the actions 



THE BOOMERANG 113 

of honest men and nations. If you will allow 
the Republican party to have a word to say 
upon legislation affecting other interests than 
the mere question of money, you need not con- 
cern yourself about the danger of still more bond 
issues, unless it be as a means of recovering from 
the dry rot of your Democratic misgovern- 
ment. 

Secretary Carlisle and you both know now 
that any attempt to refuse gold, when gold is 
demanded, would be to hurl our nation into the 
condition of silver monometallism, without even 
the shadow of law for such a system. 

Every wage-worker, and every man in any 
walk of life, who should have a silver dollar in 
his possession when such decree went forth, 
would lose forty-seven cents of that dollar in- 
stantly. The reason it is to-day worth a dollar 
is because the Government agrees to pay the 
holder a gold dollar for it if he wants it, and he 
knows that the Government has not made this 
promise beyond its ability to keep it, and above 
all he has faith in the integrity and wisdom of 
the Government that it will keep that promise. 

BOOM METHODS UNSAFE. 

Bryan : It may be further answered that our oppo- 
nents have suggested no feasible plan for avoiding the 
8 



114 THE BOOMERANG 

dangers which they fear. The retirement of the green- 
backs and Treasury notes would not protect the Treasury, 
because the same policy which now leads the Secretary 
of the Treasury to redeem all Government paper in gold, 
when gold is demanded, will require the redemption of 
all silver dollars and silver certificates in gold, if the 
greenbacks and Treasury notes are withdrawn from cir- 
culation. More than this, if the Government should 
retire its paper, and throw upon the banks the necessity 
of furnishing coin redemption, the banks would exercise 
the right to furnish either gold or silver. In other 
words, they would exercise the option, just as the Gov- 
ernment ought to exercise it now. The Government 
must either exercise the right to redeem its obligations 
in silver when silver is more convenient, or it must re- 
tire all the silver and silver certificates from circulation, 
and leave nothing but gold as legal-tender money. Are 
our opponents willing to outline a financial system 
which will carry out their policy to its legitimate conclu- 
sion, or will they continue to cloak their designs in am- 
biguous phrases ? 

Republican Party : We have not been in 
the habit of " hiding our light under a bushel ; " 
we do not hesitate to submit our financial legis- 
lation to the inspection of the people ; we be- 
lieve that international bimetallism would prove 
a benefit by increasing slightly the power of 
metallic money; but we as firmly believe that 
an attempt to secure bimetallism independently 
would result in silver monometallism, and be the 



THE BOOMERANG U5 

signal for the greatest disaster our country has 
ever seen. 

Our financial policy then, Mr. Bryan, is to 
hold on to the present system (which is the best 
in the civilized world) until, with the co-opera- 
tion of the civilized world, we can improve that 
already good system. 

The People : We cannot help but agree 
with the Republican party that conservatism 
(and if needs be, slow growth) is better for us 
than any theory that would give us a fictitious 
boom and endanger us to national distress. 
Fictitious valuation must sooner or later recoil 
with damaging effects upon the subject. 

We often hear it remarked that Kansas City 
is just getting over the effects of her boom, and 
that the growth of Omaha was stunned by the 
sudden and abnormal rise in property prices, 
and that the youngest child in Wichita, Kan., is 
not likely to see that town so populous and 
wealthy as it was when warm from the incuba- 
tor of the inflation boomers. 

Shall we build the citadel of our Government 
upon a false boom theory, even though the idea 
of an inflation by free silver should promise tem- 
porary relief from free-trade hard times ? But 
this would not be the case, for instead of in- 
flation the immediate effect would be contrac- 



Il6 THE BOOMERANG 

tion, by reason of the flight from circulation of 
the gold much faster than its place could possi- 
bly be supplied by silver. 

Bryan : There is an actual necessity for bimetallism 
as well as a theoretical defence of it. During the last 
twenty-three years legislation has been creating an ad- 
ditional demand for gold, and this law-created demand 
has resulted in increasing the purchasing power of each 
ounce of gold. The restoration of bimetallism in the 
United States will take away from gold just so much of 
its purchasing power as was added to it by the demone- 
tization of silver by the United States. 

Wage-workers : We, being the majority of 
voters, object, as before said, to your taking 
away from gold, or money which is now kept as 
good as gold, any of its purchasing power. 

Bryan : The silver dollar is now held up to the gold 
dollar by legal-tender laws and not by redemption in 
gold because the standard silver dollars are not now re- 
deemable in gold either in law or by administrative pol- 
icy. 

Uncle Sam : As a matter of fact you know 
that the reason any and all of my people can 
exchange a dollar of silver for a dollar of gold 
at the banks (which you know they can do) is 
because the banks are aware that the Govern- 
ment holds itself ready to make every dollar 
issued by its sanction, whether paper or silver, 
just as good as gold. And v ;il you now claim 



THE BOOMERANG 11 7 

should be a red-light signal to the voters ; for 
if you should by accident be elected, and, ac- 
cording to your implied threat, refuse to keep 
faith with the holders of silver dollars, that very 
act, in spite of Congress, would cause the Gov- 
ernment to repudiate its obligation to keep 
good these silver dollars, and the aggregate 
loss to the people in this alone would be over 
$300,000,000, i.e., about half the amount of 
silver money in circulation. But, besides this, 
all the other ills which a free-silver law would 
bring would follow such action on your part 
without a law. 

CAUSE AND EFFECT. 

Bryan : We contend that free and unlimited coinage 
by the United States alone will raise the bullion value of 
silver to its coinage value, and thus make silver bullion 
worth $1.29 per ounce in gold throughout the world. 
This proposition is in keeping with natural laws, not in 
defiance of them. The best-known law of commerce is 
the law of supply and demand. We recognize this law 
and build our argument upon it. We apply this law to 
money when we say that a reduction in the volume of 
money will raise the purchasing power of the dollar ; we 
also apply the law of supply and demand to silver when 
we say that a new demand for silver created by law will 
raise the price of silver bullion. Gold and silver are 
different from other commodities, in that they are lim- 



Il8 THE BOOMERANG 

ited in quantity. Corn, wheat, manufactured products, 
etc., can be produced almost without limit, provided 
they can be sold at a price sufficient to stimulate pro- 
duction, but gold and silver are called precious metals, 
because they are found, not produced. These metals 
have been the objects of anxious search as far back as 
history runs, yet, according to Mr. Harvey's calculation, 
all the gold coin of the world can be melted into a 
twenty-two-foot cube, and all the silver in the world into 
a sixty-six-foot cube. Because gold and silver are lim- 
ited, both in the quantity now in hand and in annual 
production, it follows that legislation can fix the ratio 
between them. 

Any purchaser who stands ready to take the entire 
supply of any given article at a certain price can pre- 
vent that article from falling below that price. So the 
Government can fix a price for gold and silver by creat- 
ing a demand greater than the supply. International 
bimetallists believe that several nations, by entering into 
an agreement to coin at a fixed ratio all the gold and 
silver presented, can maintain the bullion value of the 
metals at the mint ratio. When a mint price is thus 
established, it regulates the bullion price, because any 
person desiring coin may have the bullion converted into 
coin at that price, and any person desiring bullion can 
secure it by melting the coin. 

The People : As you apply the term 

" supply and demand," it seems to us that you 

should modify it by adjectives. You have given 

this law in its abstract a new meaning. You 

bring us face to face with the old law, " supply 



THE BOOMERANG Il 9 

and demand," and then put us off with a modi- 
fied form ; namely, natural supply and unnat- 
ural or artificial demand. This, Mr. Bryan, is 
in keeping with the logic of your preceptor, 
Mr. Harvey, whom you quote. 

What has it to do with our system of finance 
if he could put all the gold into a twenty-two- 
foot cube so long as neither he nor any other 
man is likely to do it ? 

While wheat, corn, etc., differ from gold and 
silver in their flexibility of production, it should 
also be borne in mind that the former being 
perishable, soon make room for new supply, 
while the latter being imperishable, continue to 
accumulate. The very important question in 
determining whether legislation can fix the 
ratio, therefore, is how limited is silver? 

If you can prove that silver is sufficiently 
limited, then it will be logical for you to state, 
-Because gold and silver are [sufficiently] 
limited, both in quantity now in hand and in 
annual production, it follows that legislation 
can fix the ratio between them." But this is 
precisely what you cannot prove. 

In urging your " belief" that the free coin- 
age of silver would raise the price of silver to 
$1.29 per ounce, or sixteen ounces of silver to 
the present price of one ounce of gold, you con- 



120 THE BOOMERANG 

tradict what you said a few minutes ago; 
namely, that " the restoration of bimetallism in 
the United States will take away from gold so 
much of its purchasing power," etc. 

All of these statements cannot be true; 
namely, that gold has increased in value, that 
free coinage of silver will bring the price of 
silver up to the present price of gold, and that 
free coinage of silver will bring the price of 
gold down to the present value of silver. How- 
ever, this inconsistency is a small matter com- 
pared with the incompatibility between your 
understanding and the understanding of scien- 
tists upon the relations of cause and effect. 

You expressan abiding faith in the ability of 
the United States to double the price of silver 
by running it through the mint. Heretofore, 
when the United States Government (or any 
other government) has admitted the free coin- 
age of silver at a given ratio with gold, it was 
because silver was worth it in the open market. 
Now you propose to make silver worth so much 
in the open market because the Government 
shall have admitted it to free coinage at a cer- 
tain fixed ratio. Note carefully : Heretofore it 
has been considered that the cause was the 
market value and the effect a legal ratio. Now 
it is proposed that the legal ratio shall become 



THE BOOMERANG 121 

the cause and the market price shall become 
the effect. This is indeed " getting the cart be- 
fore the horse." 

Jester : Can the plough pull the horse ? Can 
the lathe run the engine ? Can anybody make 
the spade lift the arm ? 

Uncle Sam : The only case in which you 
can make the coach pull the engine is when 
you are running down hill, and if the free coin- 
age of silver at double the market ratio can (be- 
ing an effect) pull the market price (the cause) 
with it, then it will be because the Government 
is travelling down grade. As a matter of fact 
the velocity with which the state structure 
would travel down hill, if it were attempted, 
would be a most appalling cause of pity for the 
American people on board. 

The People : It seems never to have* oc- 
curred to you, Mr. Bryan, to ask yourself the 
simple question : Is wheat-flour good for food 
because people want it, or do they want it be- 
cause it is good for food ? Is gold valuable be- 
cause it has been adopted as a measure of value, 
or was it adopted as a measure of value because 
it was recognized as valuable ? Which the cause, 
and which the effect f Upon the correct or in- 
correct acceptance of this idea depends the right 
or wrong conclusion of the financial question. 



122 THE BOOMERANG 

Your logic (?) would force us to shut our eyes 
to real logic, and admit that gold was adopted 
as money which created for it a demand, which 
in turn gave to it a value. History and science 
both prove that this is erroneous reasoning. 
So long as gold shall continue to be valuable 
above all things else available, so long will it 
have a place in the measurement of value ; so 
long as silver was able to keep up with gold at 
a uniform ratio, just so long was its place by 
the side of gold, as a measurement of value, un- 
disturbed. 

If as a matter of fact, by any warping or 
dwarfing of reason, we could believe that the 
adoption of silver free coinage at 16 to I would 
double the present market price of silver, then it 
must freely be admitted that by fixing any 
market value we please to copper or nickel or 
aluminum, we could bring it up to a market 
value to correspond with that ji at value ; and if 
this could be done, how unwise, how impru- 
dently modest it is for you not to exact such 
provision by the Government in addition to the 
free coinage of silver, for we are not likely to 
get too much money so long as it is all equal to 
gold ; but if, on the other hand, the market price 
is the cause, as Jefferson and Hamilton and Jack- 
son and all the wise statesmen, past and pres- 



THE BOOMERANG 1 23 

ent (except yourself), declare, then we must 
either call your free-silver idea a craze — a dis- 
ease, arid treat it accordingly, or we must re- 
write our text-books on logic. We must lay 
down as a law in economics that the Govern- 
ment fiat is the cause, and anything you please is 
the effect, and then the people must be taught 
how to arrive at the understanding of that law by 
a process, as yet unknown to any save yourself 
and a few of your assistants. But we do not be- 
lieve that this occult theory will become visible 
to our people soon. If it did, what a Utopian 
country this would soon be. The farmer not 
satisfied with the one hundred bushels of wheat 
shown on the marker of the threshing machine, 
would only have to turn his troubles over to 
you, with a request that his crop should yield 
two hundred bushels of wheat. You would 
turn the marker up and make it show the 
required amount ; and if that did not convince 
the farmer that the two hundred bushels of 
wheat were there, you would have Congress 
pass a bill which would declare \\\dXone bushel of 
wheat equals two bushels of wheat — a clear case 
of natural supply and unnatural demand. If the 
navigator were unwilling to lift anchor because 
his line showed but ten feet of water, you would 
devise some means of sprinkling ten feet more 



124 THE BOOMERANG 

of the line, thus giving him twenty feet, which 
would make it perfectly safe for the boat to 
proceed — an unnatural supply of ten feet of 
water, and a natural demand for twenty. 

It need not stop here. By the application 
of some subtile legislative drug a magic effect 
would be worked upon the farmer's live-stock, 
so that the cow would give two gallons of 
milk instead of one, and the milk would pro- 
duce double the former quantity of but- 
ter, the hens would lay twice the number of 
eggs, and all the products would immediately 
double in quantity as soon as prepared for food 
or market. This could all be brought to pass 
by merely enacting a law to that effect. 

Bryan : The only question upon which international 
bimetallists and independent bimetallists differ is : Can 
the United States by the free and unlimited coinage of 
silver at the present legal ratio create a demand for sil- 
ver which, taken in connection with the demand already 
in existence, will be sufficient to utilize all the silver 
that will be presented at the mints ? They agree in 
their defence of the bimetallic principle, and they agree 
in unalterable opposition to the gold standard. Inter- 
national bimetallists cannot complain that free coinage 
gives a benefit to the mine-owner, because international 
bimetallism gives to the owner of silver all the advan- 
tages offered by independent bimetallism at the same 
ratio. International bimetallists cannot accuse the ad- 
vocates of free silver of being " bullion owners who de- 






THE BOOMERANG 1 25 

sire to raise the value of their bullion," or " debtors who 
desire to pay their debts in cheap dollars," or " dema- 
gogues who desire to curry favor with the people." 
They must rest their opposition upon one ground only ; 
namely, that the supply of silver available for coinage is 
too large to be utilized by the United States. 

The People : Your last statement expresses 
precisely what we believe, and so far you have 
said nothing that could convince us to the con- 
trary. 

THE DANGER POINT. 

Bryan : In discussing this question we must consider 
the capacity of our people to use silver and the quantity 
of silver which can come to our mints. It must be re- 
membered that we live in a country only partially de- 
veloped, and that our people far surpass any equal 
number of people in the world in their power to con- 
sume and produce. Our extensive railroad develop- 
ment and enormous internal commerce must also be 
taken into consideration. Now, how much silver can 
come here ? Not the coined silver of the world, because 
almost all of it is more valuable at this time in other 
lands than it will be at our mints under free coinage. 
If our mints are opened to free and unlimited coinage at 
the present ratio, merchandise silver cannot come here, 
because the labor applied to it has made it worth more 
in the form of merchandise than it will be worth at our 
mints. We cannot even expect all of the annual product 
of silver, because India, China, Japan, Mexico, and all 
the other silver-using countries must satisfy their annual 



126 THE BOOMERANG 

needs from the annual product ; the arts will require 
a large amount, and the gold-standard countries will 
need a considerable quantity of subsidiary coinage. We 
will be required to coin only that which is not needed 
elsewhere ; but if we stand ready to take and utilize all 
of it, other nations will be compelled to buy at the price 
which we fix. 

The People : You must be aware, Mr. 
Bryan, that when we purchased from two mill- 
ion to four and a half million ounces a month, 
having purchased in all, since 1873, something 
over $600,000,000 worth, the stability of our 
finance, weakened by the impairment of con- 
fidence incident to free trade and the abroga- 
tion of reciprocity treaties, was threatened to 
such an extent that there arose a general de- 
mand from the people for the repeal of the 
Sherman law. Do you mean to say that, when 
with the purchase of four million five hundred 
ounces of silver per month, with every evidence 
that a great deal more stood ready to enter 
the market, we were unable to restore confi- 
dence in silver or in the ability of the United 
States Government to keep it at par with gold, 
we could by being still more reckless and im- 
prudent, establish a greater confidence ? 

Certainly, if the United States is great enougJi 
to take and use all the silver offered at $1.29 
per ounce, it would raise the price, but that 



THE BOOMERANG 127 

ability is denied ; therefore, it would be fool- 
hardy to risk it unless you can prove, or get 
somebody else to prove, that the United States 
is great enough. This question is too impor- 
tant to take for granted— even when backed up 
by your affirmative opinion. It is so important 
that we must demand proof. 

If we had a second-grade monetary system 
and were struggling upward to the plane of 
first-class nations, then we might be justified in 
taking the risk. But diametrically opposite is 
the condition ; we are a nation of the first class, 
our monetary system is the very kind chosen 
and used by all other first-class nations, and 
your new doctrine could not put us any higher ', 
but most gravely threatens to put us lower. 

Therefore, again, we say the step would be a 
foolish one to take without proof. 

Jester : Let us not " kill the goose that lays 
the golden egg." 

TOO MUCH CONJECTURE. 

Bryan : Many fear that the opening of our mints will 
be followed by an enormous increase in the annual pro- 
duction of silver. This is conjecture. Silver has been 
used as money for thousands of years, and during all of 
that time the world has never suffered from an over- 
production. 



128 THE BOOMERANG 

THE PEOPLE: Your theory also, Mr. Bryan, 
is conjecture. The reason there has never been 
an over-production of silver is because govern- 
ments have refused to give it a fictitious value. 
Copper and iron have been used as money for 
thousands of years also, but there came a time 
when their production was too great and the 
price too unstable for their continued use as 
money, and it is not unnatural, nor surprising, 
that silver should, to some extent, be affected 
in the same way. But suppose you could prove 
that the production would not increase, you 
would still have to prove that the quantity 
already accumulated is not large enough to 
swamp us — a very difficult undertaking in view 
of the fact that our multiplied and enormous 
use of silver has not prevented its falling in 
price. You do not know how much force you 
are undertaking to control ; but we all know 
that it never has been controlled by any nation 
since its mass became so great and the price 
began its frightful decline. If the United 
States was unable in 1873, when there existed 
$7,000,000,000 of silver, to prevent the begin- 
ning of the fall, could it now stop the fall, and 
raise up the price when there exist $10,000,- 
000,000? Can a man stop the impetus, and 
force back a larger moving body than he can 



THE BOOMERANG 1 29 

hold in place in a state of comparative re- 
pose ? 

Your courage in undertaking to set aside a 
law as inexorable as the law of gravity may be 
admired by a few ; but from the reasoning mul- 
titude, more of pity than of admiration will fall 
to your lot. 

Jester : Men are always among us who have 
implicit faith that they can "lift themselves by 
their boot-straps," but their worshippers are 
few. 

WHAT GAIN, EITHER WAY? 

Bryan : If, for any reason, the supply of gold or sil- 
ver in the future ever exceeds the requirements of the 
arts and the needs of commerce, we confidently hope 
that the intelligence of the people will be sufficient to 
devise and enact any legislation necessary for the pro- 
tection of the public. It is folly to refuse to the people 
the money which they now need for fear they may here- 
after have more than they need. I am firmly convinced 
that by opening our mints to free and unlimited coinage 
at the present ratio, we can create a demand for silver 
which will keep the price of silver bullion at $1.29 per 
ounce, measured by gold. 

Wage-workers : Nobody refuses us money 
when we have work to do. The only people to 
whom free silver can give money is the mine- 
owner. Is he likely to give us more work than 
the people who already have money ? Will it 
9 



13O THE BOOMERANG 

not simply make him a richer man ? Then how 
can this directly benefit us ? Suppose that 
instead of being " firmly convinced" that free 
coinage of silver would raise and keep the 
price of silver bullion to $1.29 per ounce, you 
were certain of it and could make us certain, 
what then ? You also claim it would raise the 
price of everything else — all that we eat, drink, 
and wear — and yet nowhere do you prove that 
our wages would be raised accordingly ; you 
only venture to " believe " that our wages would 
be raised in the "long run." We, as wage- 
workers, would have to work as hard and as 
long for a dollar then as now — at least until after 
the " long run ; " and by your increase in the 
price of our necessities, that same dollar, even 
if it should be worth a dollar, could not buy so 
much as it does before you raise other prices. 
But what if you are also mistaken about its 
being worth a dollar ? Suppose your free silver 
should — 

First. Raise the price of our necessities one- 
half. 

Second. Not raise our wages at all. 

Third. Cut the purchasing power of our 
dollar one-half. What would be our reward for 
supporting you ? Why, we would get one dol- 
lar in silver worth fifty cents ; and prices having 



THE BOOMERANG 131 

doubled, fifty cents would have a purchasing 
power of twenty-five cents. What an inviting 
prospect to which you ask us to pin our faith ! 

Jester : 

"Things done well, 

And with a care, exempt themselves from 
fear; 

Things done without example, in their issue 

Are to be fear'd." 

SILVER A COMMODITY. 

Bryan : Some of our opponents attribute the fall in 
the value of silver, when measured by gold, to the fact 
that during the last quarter of a century the world's 
supply of silver has increased more rapidly than the 
world's supply of gold. This argument is entirely 
answered by the fact that during the last five years the 
annual production of gold has increased more rapidly 
than the annual production of silver. Since the gold 
price of silver has fallen more during the last five years 
than it ever fell in any previous five years in the history 
of the world, it is evident that the fall is not due to in- 
creased production. Prices can be lowered as effectu- 
ally by decreasing the demand for an article as by in- 
creasing the supply of it, and it seems certain that the 
fall in the gold price of silver is due to hostile legisla- 
tion and not to natural laws. 

Uncle Sam : So far from our legislation be- 
ing hostile to silver, the Bland-Allison Act of 



132 THE BOOMERANG 

1878, and the Sherman Act of 1890, did all that 
in reason could be done to prevent the falling 
of silver ; we have purchased and put into cir- 
culation over $600,000,000 of silver and silver 
certificates since 1873, or about seventy times 
as much in the short space of twenty years after 
1873 as we had been required to put into circu- 
lation during the preceding century. 

Here amid an increased demand of seventy 
fold we were compelled to witness a constant 
and rapid decline in the value of silver. 

The fact that gold has not shared the fate of 
silver, notwithstanding its increased production, 
if it proves anything at all, proves that gold is a 
fixed and preferred measure of value, not sub- 
ject to perpetual and dangerous changes, while 
silver, like iron, copper, and nickel, is a com- 
modity, and therefore subject to such change as 
to make it unreliable as a money standard. 

Legislation has been friendly toward silver, 
and the only logical deduction possible to be 
drawn from the facts you have here recited is 
that legislation is powerless to make a civilized 
world accept as the best measure of value any- 
thing which by an immutable law of nature 
occupies a secondary place. 

Jester : You cannot make a " silk purse out 
of a sow's ear." 



THE BOOMERANG 133 

Bryan : Our opponents cannot ignore the fact that 
gold is now going abroad in spite of all legislation in- 
tended to prevent it, and no silver is being coined to 
take its place. Not only is gold going abroad now but 
it must continue to go abroad as long as the present 
financial policy is adhered to, unless we continue to 
borrow from across the ocean, and even then we simply 
postpone the evil, because the amount borrowed, togeth- 
er with interest upon it, must be repaid in appreciating 
dollars. The American people now owe a large sum to 
European creditors, and falling prices have left a larger 
and larger margin between our net national income and 
our annual interest charge. There is only one way to 
stop the increasing flow of gold from our shores, and 
that is to stop falling prices. 

Wage-workers : When the balance of trade 
was in our favor, naturally we had no difficulty 
in keeping our gold and getting more. We 
know of no policy which can solve the problem 
of international trade and home industry and 
therefore incidentally meet the wants of our 
Government in revenue, except the protective 
policy combined with reciprocity. We cannot 
get it through our heads how the mere process 
of giving a few dozen mine-owners a few mill- 
ion a piece of silver dollars for their silver bull- 
ion, will keep prices from falling ; but we can 
understand how the manufacture of our own 
products at home will restore normal prices, 
and at the same time give us steady and in- 



134 THE BOOMERANG 

creasing wages with which to buy all that we 
need. 

The Republican plan has been both tried and 
proved ; your remedy has been tried and dis- 
proved by other nations, and has not been 
proved to us. So far from aiding us to keep 
gold here it would drive it all away, and put 
us on a silver basis ; other countries prove this 
true. Can you prove it untrue ? 

Bryan : The restoration of bimetallism will not only 
stop falling prices, but will— to some extent — restore 
prices by reducing the world's demand for gold. If it 
is argued that a rise in prices lessens the value of the 
dollars which we pay our creditors, I reply that, in the 
balancing of equities the American people have as much 
right to favor a financial system which will maintain or 
restore prices as foreign creditors have to insist upon a 
financial system that will reduce prices. But the inter- 
ests of society are far superior to the interests of either 
debtors or creditors, and the interests of society demand 
a financial system which will add to the volume of the 
standard money of the world, and thus restore stability 
to prices. 

The PEOPLE : This would be a good argu- 
ment if it pertained to tariff laws instead of 
finance laws. 



THE BOOMERANG 135 



THE FARMER'S BEST MARKET. 

Bryan : Perhaps the most persistent misrepresenta- 
tion that we have to meet is the charge that we are ad- 
vocating the payment of debts in fifty-cent dollars. 
At the present time and under present laws a silver 
dollar, when melted, loses nearly half its value ; but that 
will not be true when we again establish a mint price 
for silver and leave no surplus silver upon the market 
to drag down the price of bullion. Under bimetallism 
silver bullion will be worth as much as silver coin, just 
as gold bullion is now worth as much as gold coin, and 
we believe that a silver dollar will be worth as much as 
a gold dollar. 

Farmers : If this be the case, will you be 
kind enough to answer two questions : 

First. How can we pay our debts with cheap- 
ened money if money shall not be cheapened? 

Second. How can we get hold of the extra 
silver money which your system will put into 
the hands of the mine-owners ? Will it be any 
easier for us to get money from silver-mine 
millionnaires than from the Vanderbilts and the 
Goulds, whose money you suppose to be no 
better than the money which will be held by 
these silver-mine owners whom you propose to 
enrich ? Will not your theory simply result, 
according to what you have just said, in mak- 
ing more millionnaires? And do you believe 



136 THE BOOMERANG 

that that will help us farmers ? We cannot de- 
pend upon them alone for our market ; our best 
customers are the wage-workers. We would 
rather you would talk about some system of 
legislation that will give us back our home 
market, as we had it before 1893; that's what 
McKinley is talking about, and you can depend 
upon it, what he has to say upon this subject is 
very interesting reading to us. 

You propose to start three or four mills to 
grind out dollars which you cannot prove will 
be good, and with no assurance that we can 
get them. 

McKinley proposes to start all the rest of the 
mills and factories of the country to turning out 
commodities that will exchange for dollars 
which we know are good, with every assurance 
that the wage-workers who get these good dol- 
lars will trade them to us for our produce. 

Bryan : The charge of repudiation comes with poor 
grace from those who are seeking to add to the weight 
of existing debts by legislation which makes money 
dearer, and who conceal their designs against the gen- 
eral welfare under the euphonious pretence that they 
are upholding public credit and national honor. 

The People : But if the same system which 
does hold up public credit and national honor, 
also prevents private repudiation and private 



THE BOOMERANG 1 37 

dishonor, and benefits more than it injures us, 
let us keep that system. This we know the 
present system does to the greatest extent of 
any system yet devised by progressive nations. 

Bryan : In answer to the charge that gold will go 
abroad, it must be remembered that no gold can leave 
this country until the owner of the gold receives some- 
thing in return for it which he would rather have. In 
other words, when gold leaves the country those who 
formerly owned it will be benefited. There is no proc- 
ess by which we can be compelled to part with our gold 
against our will, nor is there any process by which silver 
can be forced upon us without our consent. Exchanges 
are matters of agreement, and if silver comes to this 
country under free coinage it will be at the invitation of 
some one in this country who will give something in ex- 
change for it. 

Uncle Sam : You know too well, Mr. Bryan, 
that foreign nations do not conceal their anxiety 
to ship their hoarded silver into this country 
and exchange it at almost any price for gold, 
which will subserve their purposes better. The 
most significant truth you have uttered is that 
"exchanges are matters of agreement." This 
is why you cannot prevent our gold from going 
out ; this is why you cannot give to silver a fic- 
titious exchange value ; this is why no law can 
prevent one man from agreeing to pay in gold 
if he desires to so agree. 



I38 THE BOOMERANG 



BRYAN'S REMARKABLE COMPARISON. 

Bryan : Those who deny the ability of the United 
States to maintain the parity between gold and silver at 
the present ratio without aid, point to Mexico, and assert 
that the opening of our mints will reduce us to a silver 
basis and raise gold to a premium. It is no reflection 
upon our sister Republic to remind our people that the 
United States is much greater than Mexico in area, in 
population, and in commercial strength. It is absurd to 
assert that the United States is not able to do anything 
which Mexico has failed to accomplish. The one thing 
necessary in order to maintain the parity is to furnish a 
demand great enough to utilize all the silver which will 
come to the mints. That Mexico has failed to do this is 
not proof that the United States would also fail. 

The People : A strange proposition this, 
Mr. Bryan ! Equally as sane would be the ar- 
gument that the fact of a boy's being unable to 
lift a mountain is not proof that a man cannot 
lift it. No one would be foolish enough to deny 
that the United States is much greater than 
Mexico, but the fatal question is, How much 
greater than Mexico need a country be in order 
that it can do an impossible thing ? If one 
reasoner, with limited mental acumen, cannot 
by his logic disprove the law that the cause 
must precede the effect, does it follow that an- 
other reasoner, because he is superior, can dem- 



THE BOOMERANG 139 

onstrate that the effect must precede the cause ? 
Since past experience, and all scientific theory- 
are agreed that market value must be the cause, 
and money value the result, how much wiser 
and greater must our age and country be to 
prove the reversal of this law — the lawlessness 
of this law — namely, that the money value is 
the cause and the market value the result ? 

Bryan : It is also argued that since a number of na- 
tions have demonetized silver, nothing can be done un- 
til all of those nations restore bimetallism. This is also 
illogical. It is immaterial how many or how few nations 
have open mints, provided there are sufficient open 
mints to furnish a monetary demand for all the gold and 
silver available for coinage. 

Republican Party : It is just as true that 
the other civilized nations must join us in ef- 
fecting bimetallism as it is that they must join 
us in settling all the necessarily international 
questions, and there is nothing illogical about 
it. Your last statement here is true, but it in- 
volves the necessity of international accord, for 
which we contend. 

Bryan : In reply to the argument that improved ma- 
chinery has lessened the cost of producing silver, it is 
sufficient to say that the same is true of the production 
of gold, and yet notwithstanding that gold has risen in 
value. As a matter of fact, the cost of production does 
not determine the value of the precious metals, except 



140 THE BOOMERANG 

as it may affect the supply. If, for instance, the cost of 
producing gold should be reduced to 90 per cent, with- 
out any increase in the output, the purchasing power of 
an ounce of gold would not fall. So long as there is a 
monetary demand sufficient to take at a fixed mint 
price all of the gold and silver produced, the cost of 
production need not be considered. 

The People : Whatever bearing this may 
Javp it cannot be denied that the silver pro- 
ducers are anxious to continue the production 
of silver at the present market price. If the 
cost of producing gold does not influence its 
price, then nothing seems likely to do so, while 
we know that something does prevent silver and 
all other commodities from standing still. 
Therefore your own argument is against the 
possibility of keeping silver at an unchangeable 
price. 

Bryan : It is often objected that the prices of gold 
and silver cannot be fixed in relation to each other, be- 
cause of the variation in the relative production of the 
metals. This argument also overlooks the fact that, if 
the demand for both metals at a fixed price is greater 
than the supply of both, relative production becomes 
immaterial. 

The People : If, as you say, the demand for 
both metals were greater than the supply of 
both, then your declaration would be true, pro- 
vided you will allow us to use the term natu- 
ral dema7id. 



THE BOOMERANG 141 

Bryan : In the early part of the present century the 
annual production of silver was worth, at the coinage 
ratio, about three times as much as the annual produc- 
tion of gold ; whereas, soon after 1849, the annual pro- 
duction of gold became worth about three times as much, 
at the coinage ratio, as the annual production of silver ; 
and yet, owing to the maintenance of the bimetallic 
standard, these enormous changes in relative produc- 
tion had but a slight effect upon the relative values of 
the metals. 

The People : If this proves anything, it is 
that, regardless of the ratio of production, civ- 
ilized countries prefer gold as the measure of 
value and refuse silver except for subsidiary use. 

The enormous changes of which you speak 
could not seriously affect the price of silver, as 
measured by gold, so long as the accumulated 
amount of silver as a commodity had not reached 
a proportion sufficient to overburden the legiti- 
mate demand. 

The fact that up to 1873 only $8,000,000 
worth could be spared from the whole accumu- 
lated supply for free coinage by the United 
States proves that as a commodity silver had 
not as yet supplied the demands of the world. 
But about that time it became obvious that the 
rapidly increasing product of silver threatened 
to destroy its use as a co-ordinate measure of 
value with gold ; particularly was this true 



142 THE BOOMERANG 

since other nations had abandoned its use as 
money. This theory was subsequently proved 
correct by the fact that our government was not 
able to consume all the silver available for money 
between 1873 and 1893, notwithstanding the 
enormous amount of over $800,000,000 was so 
utilized. 

But even if it could be proved that hostile 
financial legislation has lowered the price of sil- 
ver, you must admit that a part of this hostility is 
chargeable to England, France and Germany, 
as well as to the United States. Therefore it 
would take the same combined legislative power 
to restore the price. Should the United States 
in such a case try to raise up what the whole 
world is trying to hold down ? The fact that 
the most advanced nations prefer the gold stand- 
ard, even though it should destroy the price of 
silver, is in itself a powerful argument in favor 
of the gold standard ; for it is not likely that 
all the first-class nations can be wrong, and all 
the second-class nations right upon a question 
which has long claimed the attention of the 
greatest political economists of the world. It 
doesn't often happen that the one juryman is 
right and the eleven wrong. 



THE BOOMERANG 143 



THE GREATEST GOOD TO THE GREATEST 
NUMBER. 

Bryan : If it is asserted by our opponents that the 
free coinage of silver is intended only for the benefit of 
the mine-owners, it must be remembered that free coin- 
age cannot restore to the mine-owners any more than 
demonetization took away ; and it must also be remem- 
bered that the loss which the demonetization of silver 
has brought to the mine-owners is insignificant com- 
pared with the loss which this policy has brought to the 
rest of the people. The restoration of silver will bring 
to the people generally many times as much advantage 
as the mine-owners can obtain from it. While it is not 
the purpose of free coinage to specially aid any particu- 
lar class, yet those who believe that the restoration of 
silver is needed by the whole people should not be de- 
terred because an incidental benefit will come to the 
mine-owners. The erection of forts, the deepening of 
harbors, the improvement of rivers, the erection of pub- 
lic buildings— all these confer incidental benefits upon 
individuals and communities, and yet these incidental 
benefits do not deter us from making appropriations for 
these purposes whenever such appropriations are neces- 
sary for the public good. 

Uncle Sam : Here you, as a representative 
of the mine-owners, manifest a gross ingrati- 
tude. We did all any government could do to 
keep the price of silver up, using, as has been 
shown, seventy times more during the twenty 



144 THE BOOMERANG 

years since the adoption of the gold standard 
than was used the entire century prior to that. 
We cannot undertake to prevent the deprecia- 
tion of property when such depreciation comes 
about by natural laws. 

If two-fifths of the manufacturers of bicycles 
fail in business because of over-production we can- 
not prevent it. While advantage to a few is not 
deprecated when incidental to the greatest good 
to the greatest number, yet progress exacts the 
application of this law when its effect is reversed. 
Steam, electricity, and the bicycle have played 
sad havoc with horse-raisers, but their misfort- 
une is the good fortune of the people at large. 
And by the same token, even if you could prove 
(which you have not done) that demonetization 
of silver brought distress to the mine-owner, it 
would nevertheless be true that our safe and 
sure currency system has brought the greatest 
good to the greatest number, and that the same 
silver-mine owner, who would have the right to 
incidental benefit in the one case, would be duty- 
bound to stand the incidental loss in the other. 

Jester : " There are gains for all our losses, 
there are balms for all our pain." 

Uncle Sam : So far, therefore, from bring- 
ing about a loss to the rest of the people, there 
can be no doubt but that our adhesion to the civ- 



THE BOOMERANG 145 

ilized gold-standard system has been a saving 
grace to all our people. 

The People : Uncle Sam is right. We do 
not object to the incidental benefit which wise 
and beneficent legislation for the whole people 
may bring to any special person or persons; 
that is why we do not object to bimetallism by 
international agreement. We do not, however, 
propose to consent to a futile attempt at bi- 
metallism independently, feeling, as we do, that 
it would certainly result only in silver mono- 
metallism, 

THE WAY BACK TO PROSPERITY. 

Bryan : The argument that a silver dollar is heavier 
than a gold dollar, and that, therefore, silver is less con- 
venient to carry in large quantities, is completely an- 
swered by the silver certificate, which is as easily carried 
as the gold certificate or any other kind of paper-money. 

There are some who, while admitting the benefits of 
bimetallism, object to coinage at the present ratio. If 
any are deceived by this objection, they ought to re- 
member that there are no bimetallists who are earnestly 
endeavoring to secure it at any other ratio than 16 to i. 
We are opposed to any change in the ratio for two rea- 
sons—first, because a change would produce great in- 
justice ; and, second, because a change in the ratio is 
not necessary. A change would produce injustice, be- 
cause, if effected in the manner usually suggested, it 



146 THE BOOMERANG 

would result in an enormous contraction in the volume 
of standard money. 

If, for instance, it was decided by international agree- 
ment to raise the ratios throughout the world to 32 to 1 , 
the change might be effected in any one of three ways : 

The silver dollar could be doubled in size, so that the 
new silver dollar would weigh thirty-two times as much 
as the present gold dollar ; or the present gold dollar 
could be reduced one-half in weight, so that the present 
silver dollar would weigh thirty-two times as much as 
the new gold dollar ; or the change could be made 
by increasing the size of the silver dollar and decreas- 
ing the size of the gold dollar until the new silver 
dollar would weigh thirty-two times as much as the new 
gold dollar. Those who have advised a change in the 
ratio have usually suggested that the silver dollar be 
doubled. If this change were made it would necessitate 
the recoinage of four billions of silver into two billions 
of dollars. There would be an immediate loss of two 
billions of dollars either to individuals or to the Govern- 
ment, but this would be the least of the injury. A 
shrinkage of one-half in the silver money of the world 
would mean a shrinkage of one-fourth in the total vol- 
ume of metallic money. This contraction, by increas- 
ing the value of the dollar, would virtually increase the 
debts of the world billions of dollars, and decrease still 
more the value of the property of the world as measured 
by dollars. Besides this immediate result, such a change 
in the ratio would permanently decrease the annual ad- 
dition to the world's supply of money, because the an- 
nual silver product, when coined into dollars twice as 
large, would make only half as many dollars. 



THE BOOMERANG 1 47 

The people of the United States would be injured by 
a change in the ratio, not because they produce silver, 
but because they own property and owe debts, and they 
cannot afford to thus decrease the value of their prop- 
erty or increase the burden of their debts. 

The People : Since it is true that but two 
courses are before us, we need not for the pres- 
ent have our attention detracted from these two 
courses by other suppositions. Of these two 
courses one is certain and the other yet a theory 
—one, with proper tariff laws, guarantees peace, 
prosperity, and plenty— the other, which is in- 
dissolubly attached to improper tariff laws, 
promises no stability, no certainty, no hope. 

We have before us a clear road, lighted with 
wisdom, experience, and scientific proof. Shall 
we choose rather the dark tunnel, as yet unex- 
plored, and the travel through which will take 
at least four years, and perhaps a generation ? 
Our social fabric is now on a train which is se- 
cure on a solid track, built upon the true and 
tried roadbed of confidence, and with slight ad- 
justment of the tariff machinery this majestic 
train is ready at the signal of the nation's voters 
to make a safe and pleasant journey through the 
ever green fields of thrift and industry back to 
the city of prosperity, from which the mis- 
management of Democratic accident and treach- 



148 THE BOOMERANG 

ery have dragged it. Shall we then postpone 
our trip to prosperity until the Democratic con- 
struction company with their inexperience and 
unsound material shall throw together a new 
track, which, when constructed, would not after 
all lead to prosperity, but on which the train of 
American progress would be in constant danger 
of wreck ? Shall we place at the throttle you, 
Mr. Bryan, an untried boy-engineer, who, intoxi- 
cated with your conceit, declare your contempt 
for the experience and example of the past, 
and haughtily fling into the face of science all 
precedent, and practically ascribe to yourself the 
power of a magician, when our sober, intelligent, 
and experienced statesman, William McKinley, 
stands ready to serve at such an important 
post ? 

Bryan: In 1878 Mr. Carlisle said: "Mankind will 
be fortunate indeed if the annual production of gold and 
silver coin shall keep pace with the annual increase of 
population and industry." I repeat this assertion. All 
of the gold and silver annually available for coinage, 
when converted into coin at the present ratio, will not, 
in my judgment, more than supply our monetary needs. 

UNCLE Sam : My boy, you have here quoted 
Mr. Carlisle's opinion, given in 1878, and you 
yourself give an opinion in 1896. You are well 
aware that Mr. Carlisle has changed his opinion 
upon this subject. May I not hope that when 



THE BOOMERANG 1 49 

you have lived eighteen years longer you will 
also change your opinion ? 

Jester : To change one's opinion is a priv- 
ilege exercised only by wise and progressive 
men. 



GOVERNMENT POWERLESS TO CONTROL THE 
PRICE OF SILVER. 

Bryan : In supporting the act of 1890, known as the 
Sherman Act, Senator Sherman, on June 5th of that year, 
said : 

"Under the law of February, 1878, the purchase of 
$2,000,000 worth of silver bullion a month has by coin- 
age produced annually an average of nearly $3,000,000 
per month for a period of twelve years ; but this 
amount, in view of the retirement of the bank-notes, 
will not increase our currency in proportion to our in- 
creasing population. If our present currency is esti- 
mated at $1,400,000, and our population is increasing 
at the ratio of three per cent, per annum, it would re- 
quire $42,000,000 increased circulation each year to 
keep pace with the increase of population ; but as the 
increase of population is accompanied by a still greater 
ratio of increase of wealth and business, it was thought 
that an immediate increase of circulation might be ob- 
tained by larger purchases of silver bullion to an amount 
sufficient to make good the retirement of bank-notes 
and keep pace with the growth of population. Assum- 
ing that $54,000,000 a year of additional currency is 



150 THE BOOMERANG 

needed upon this basis, that amount is provided for in 
this bill by the issue of Treasury notes in exchange for 
bullion at the market price." 

If the United States then needed more than forty-two 
millions annually to keep pace with population and 
business, it now, with a larger population, needs a still 
greater annual addition ; and the United States is only 
one nation among many. Our opponents make no ade- 
quate provision for the increasing monetary needs of 
the world. 

Uncle Sam : Certainly Mr. Sherman and 
many other people at that time favored the 
Sherman Act, hoping it would provide a suffi- 
cient market to carry the price of silver back to 
$1.29 per ounce, or at least prevent it from fall- 
ing any further ; but at the end of three years 
they all saw their mistake ; they saw how pow- 
erless the Government was to control the price 
of a metal which in the nature of things had 
taken its place as a commodity. 

The increase of $54,000,000 per year, referred 
to in Mr. Sherman's statement, was continued 
as long as a government, even with the strength 
of the United States, could stand it. We were 
threatened with a complete withdrawal of all 
the gold from our circulation, and this uncer- 
tainty as to our intention and ability to keep 
every dollar as good as gold, together with the 
paralysis of our industries, caused by the fear of 



THE BOOMERANG 151 

the awful effects of free trade, precipitated a 
panic, from the effects of which we have never 
recovered. As much of the distress was avert- 
ed as our righteous and firm attitude on the 
money question could avert. 

In face of the jeopardy of undertaking to 
continue even this limited purchase indefinitely, 
would you now have us undertake the still 
more hazardous project of buying all the silver 
there is and is to be in the world, or doing what 
would amount to buying it, according to your 
theory; namely, undertaking to hold it up to 
the value of gold by act of Congress ? 

All that is needed for a complete restoration 
of the good times preceding that panic, or this 
panic (for it has not ended), is to add to our 
firm declaration on the money question the 
proper and equally firm declaration to the wage- 
workers of America that their work will start 
again. While Mr. Sherman recognizes a slow 
increase of money as an inconvenience, yet he 
knows that an unwise effort at inflation is vast- 
ly more than inconvenient, for it is a disaster. 

The People : We can safely trust the Re- 
publican party to take whatever action wisdom 
and experience will warrant both in tariff and 
in financial legislation. And, after all, it is a 
question of which party we prefer to trust. 



152 THE BOOMERANG 

Bryan : In the second place, a change in the ratio is 
not necessary. Hostile legislation has decreased the 
demand for silver and lowered its price when measured 
by gold, while this same hostile legislation, by increas- 
ing the demand for gold, has raised the value of gold 
when measured by other forms of property. 

We are told that the restoration of bimetallism would 
be a hardship upon those who have entered into con- 
tracts payable in gold coin, but this is a mistake. It 
will be easier to obtain the gold with which to meet a 
gold contract, when most of the people use silver, than 
it is now, when every one is trying to secure gold. 

The People : In some of your statements 
you give the impression that silver will be 
raised up to the present value of gold, and 
again you imply that the value of gold will be 
brought down. You do, however, seem at all 
times to admit that there will constantly be a 
fluctuation between their values, first one and 
then the other at a premium ; and it is to this 
particular thing we make strong objection. If 
we are to have any one thing that does not fluc- 
tuate, in the name of progress let that one thing 
be money. 

Business Men : We cannot see how we shall 
be benefited by a rise in price and a lowering of 
the value of money. If the wage-workers would 
continue to buy as much as before, paying us 
twice as much money, we would be no better 






THE BOOMERANG 153 

off — it would only be an even thing ; but with 
prices doubled they could not buy so much un- 
less their wages were doubled {which you do 
not prove) ; hence we could not sell so much. 
Therefore we should share the ill fate of all 
other classes of people by your " Dark-Age " 
theory. Is this to our interest ? 

Jester: "The man who is a little selfish 
displays more horse-sense than the one who is 
too generous." 

THE LAW OF CONTRACTS. 

Bryan : The Chicago platform expressly declares in 
favor of such legislation as may be necessary to prevent, 
for the future, the demonetization of any kind of legal- 
tender money by private contract. Such contracts are 
objected to on the ground that they are against public 
policy. No one questions the right of legislatures to fix 
the rate of interest which can be collected by law ; there 
is far more reason for preventing private individuals 
from setting aside legal-tender law. The money which 
is by law made a legal tender, must, in the course of 
ordinary business, be accepted by ninety-nine out of 
every hundred persons. Why should the one-hundredth 
man be permitted to exempt himself from the general 
rule ? Special contracts have a tendency to increase 
the demand for a particular kind of money, and thus 
force it to a premium. Have not the people a right to 
say that a comparatively few individuals shall not be 
permitted to derange the financial system of the nation 



154 THE BOOMERANG 

in order to collect a premium in case they succeed in 
forcing one kind of money to a premium ? 

Republican Party : Your Chicago plat- 
form would be as wonderful if it succeeded in 
this as it would be if it succeeded in creating a 
fictitious price for silver. It is against the fun- 
damental tenets of freedom, and against the evo- 
lution of the law of contracts, to prevent one 
man from bartering with another as the two may 
see jit. No law could prevent a person from 
agreeing to pay for that which he purchases in 
so many horses, so many cattle, so many pounds 
of steel or so many ounces of gold ; and to at- 
tempt such legislation is to confess deterioration. 

Your esteemed co-worker, Senator Stewart, 
and all the other silver kings of the West, have 
a right to continue their present practice of 
making their loans payable in gold. 

You stated but a few moments ago that " ex- 
changes are matters of agreement." Why are 
you not willing to apply this doctrine here ? 
The law against usury is commendable, for 
while it places a limit to the amount of interest 
which may be charged, it supposes that the 
amount both of principal and interest agreed 
upon (within the limit) will be paid. There 
is no injustice in this. But if there are two 
kinds of money which are, or are likely to 



THE BOOMERANG 1 55 

be, of two different values, there would be no 
justice in compelling a lender of the more 
certain and more valuable money to accept in 
return for it the less valuable money. Such a 
law would not suppose that the amount loaned 
would be paid back — on the contrary, it would 
force the creditor to take less. 

You claim to advocate such measures as 
would discourage hoarding money. Do you 
not see that such a law as your platform pro- 
poses, and you here defend, would induce, al- 
most compel, hoarding ? Nothing could be 
plainer. 

Bryan : There is another argument to which I ask 
your attention. Some of the more zealous opponents of 
free coinage point to the fact that thirteen months 
must elapse between the election and the first regular 
session of Congress, and assert that during that time in 
case people declare themselves in favor of free coinage, 
all loans will be withdrawn and all mortgages foreclosed. 
If these are merely prophecies indulged in by those who 
have forgotten the provisions of the Constitution, it 
will be sufficient to remind them that the President is 
empowered to convene Congress in extraordinary session 
whenever the public good requires such action. If, in 
November, the people by their ballots declare them- 
selves in favor of the immediate restoration of bimetal- 
lism, the system can be inaugurated within a few months. 

The People : This plan does not compare 
for haste with that suggested by you a few min- 



156 THE BOOMERANG 

utes ago when you insisted that the President 
should exercise his right to redeem all Govern- 
ment obligations in silver. That would enable 
you to give us the effect of a free-coinage act 
without convening Congress at all, and a knowl- 
edge of your intention to do this would, if you 
should be elected in November, chase every 
gold dollar to its hiding-place, and precipitate a 
panic long before your inauguration in March. 

Bryan : If, however, the assertion that loans will be 
withdrawn and mortgages foreclosed is made to prevent 
such political action as the people may believe to be 
necessary for the preservation of their rights, then a 
new and vital issue is raised. Whenever it is necessary 
for the people as a whole to obtain consent from the 
owners of money and the changers of money before they 
can legislate upon financial questions, we shall have 
passed from a democracy to a plutocracy. But that 
time has not yet arrived. Threats and intimidation will 
be of no avail. The people who, in 1776, rejected the 
doctrine that kings rule by right divine, will not, in this 
generation, subscribe to the doctrine that money is om- 
nipotent. 

Wage- workers : Again, you seem to forget, 
Mr. Bryan, that we are the creditors who will 
withdraw our loans. Do you suppose that we 
would willingly leave our deposits in banks 
which we had reason to believe would later on 
be forced to pay us one-half of their value ? We 
do not offer these as threats, but we cannot help 



THE BOOMERANG 1 57 

discussing among ourselves a contingency of 
such vital interest to us and our families. 

The rule of kings by right divine has nothing 
to do with the question. We are asked to make 
a choice between two money systems, the one 
preferred and chosen by the most highly civil- 
ized nations of the earth, the other rejected by 
them. 

Are we to spurn that system which is best for 
us, simply because it also happens to be best 
for the " owners of money and the changers of 
money?" The only virtue such patriotism 
would contain would be that of self-sacrifice. 

JESTER : No, you had better " live and let 
live," especially if, in order to live, you must let 
live. 

AN INTERNATIONAL QUESTION. 

BRYAN : In conclusion, permit me to say a word in re- 
gard to international bimetallism. We are not opposed 
to an international agreement looking to the restoration 
of bimetallism throughout the world. The advocates of 
free coinage have on all occasions shown their willing- 
ness to co-operate with other nations in the reinstate- 
ment of silver, but they are not willing to await the 
pleasure of other governments when immediate relief 
is needed by the people of the United States, and they 
further believe that independent action offers better as- 
surance of international bimetallism than servile de- 



158 THE BOOMERANG 

pendence upon foreign nations. For more than twenty 
years we have invited the assistance of European nations, 
but all progress in the direction of international bimetal- 
lism has been blocked by the opposition of those who 
derive a pecuniary benefit from the appreciation of gold. 
How long must we wait for bimetallism to be brought 
to us by those who profit by monometallism ? If the 
double standard will bring benefits to our people, who 
will deny them the right to enjoy those benefits ? If our 
opponents would admit the right, the ability, and the 
duty of our people to act for themselves on all public 
questions without the assistance, and regardless of the 
wishes, of other nations, and then propose the remedial 
legislation which they consider sufficient, we could meet 
them in the field of honorable debate ; but, when they 
assert that this nation is helpless to protect the rights of 
its own citizens, we challenge them to submit the issue 
to a people whose patriotism has never been appealed 
to in vain. 

We shall not offend other nations when we declare the 
right of the American people to govern themselves, and 
without let or hindrance from without, decide upon 
every question presented for their consideration. In 
taking this position, we simply maintain the dignity of 
seventy million citizens who are second to none in their 
capacity for self-government. 

The gold standard has compelled the American peo- 
ple to pay an ever-increasing tribute to the creditor na- 
tions of the world— a tribute which no one dares to de- 
fend. I assert that national honor requires the United 
States to secure justice for all its citizens as well as do 
justice to all its creditors. For a people like ours, 



THE BOOMERANG 1 59 

blest with natural resources of surpassing richness, 
to proclaim themselves impotent to frame a financial 
system suited to their own needs, is humiliating beyond 
the power of language to describe. We cannot enforce 
respect for our foreign policy so long as we confess our- 
selves unable to frame our own financial policy. 

Jester: I have heard it said that "Fools 
rush in where angels fear to tread." 

The People: While we fully agree, Mr. 
Bryan, with your every utterance on American 
independence, where independence means any- 
thing, yet we refuse to be blinded to our own 
interests by any glaring light of sentimental 
cupidity. Does one farmer sacrifice his inde- 
pendence by joining another farmer in keeping 
up a partition fence? Must mere sentiment 
prevent two neighbor merchants from tran- 
sporting their merchandise through the same 
agent ? 

Jester : Strange things happen. I saw a 
man " cut off his nose to spite his face." He 
called it "independence." 

The People : We do not object to co-operat- 
ing with England and other civilized nations on 
matters of mutual interest, such as steamship 
and cable termini, weights and measures, princi- 
ples of international law, and a money standard. 
You are mistaken if you fancy you can arouse 



l60 THE BOOMERANG 

in us hatred or fear of other nations by false and 
spurious doctrines of patriotism. 

When it comes to a question of purely na- 
tional importance, in which our own prosperity 
is dependent upon principles at variance with 
the wishes of foreign countries, then, impelled 
by the natural law of self-preservation, we do 
not hesitate to act independently; as, for in- 
stance, when we know by happy and by sad 
experience that it keeps our labor and our 
capital both profitably employed to so adjust 
our laws as to enable us to do our own manu- 
facturing, then we think it wise to pass these 
laws and protect labor and capital in America, 
whether the manufacturers of Glasgow, Brad- 
ford, etc., are kept busy or not. 

Of course we shall regret the disadvantage to 
our English cousins, who have been so regularly 
employed since Cleveland's Utopian theory of 
tariff reform, but, if it comes to sympathy, we 
must remember that "Charity begins at home." 

Four years ago the effect of free trade was a 
matter of theory. The Democrats said it would 
throw open the markets of the world and that 
everything would be cheap. The Republicans 
said, yes, everything will be cheap, but it will 
force the people to pauper wages, and leave them 
nothing with which to buy even the cheapened 



THE BOOMERANG l6l 

necessities; and since it was uncertain what the 
effect would be, we thought we would try it. 

We never listened to more charming promises 
than were made by you and the other Demo- 
cratic leaders in exchange for our votes in favor 
of free trade. 

Jester : " Nothing hurts a man like pinning 
his faith to a wrong idea and being scratched 
by the pin." 

Farmers : Mr. Cleveland's flowery promises 
that we should enjoy the vast markets of the 
world seemed like the balm of Gilead to our 
anxious souls. Markets were precisely what we 
were hunting for. Why should we not throw 
the influence of our ballots in favor of such 
grand opportunities? And why should we 
refuse to Mr. Cleveland the small request for 
the office of President, when he proposed to 
give us in return such demand for our products 
as to make our wildest dreams seem modest 
indeed ? 
Jester : 

" His tongue 
Dropped manna, and could make the worse ap- 
pear 
The better reason." 

Farmers : We found that in grasping after 
these far-away visionary markets we lost hold 
ii 



1 62 THE BOOMERANG 

upon the markets which we had. Our neighbor 
mechanics, laborers, clerks, book-keepers, salaried 
people, and wage-workers, all who used to cheer 
us with their smiles and bless us with their 
money, in exchange for our products, now meet 
us with sad faces, and tell us they must be spar- 
ing of their scant means, and that we must con- 
tent ourselves with selling our products to the 
wage -workers in foreign countries who are 
now doing our manufacturing and getting our 
money. 

But the foreign countries are indeed far away, 
and the cost of transportation, together with 
the competition of the cheap farm labor in 
second and third class nations makes it im- 
possible for us to get our old-time prices. We 
had protection, reciprocity, and prosperity ; we 
grasped at free trade and visionary markets, and 
in this greed lies our undoing. 

Jester : ^Esop warned you against such folly 
in the fable The Dog and the Shadow : 

A dog crossing a bridge over a stream with a 
piece of flesh in his mouth saw his own shadow 
in the water, and took it for another dog with 
a piece of meat double his own in size. He 
therefore let go his own and fiercely attacked 
the other dog to get his larger piece from him. 
He thus lost both— that which he grasped at' in 



THE BOOMERANG 1 63 

the water, because it was a shadow ; and his 
own, because the stream swept it away. 

Moral : It is not wise to be too greedy. 

Wage-workers : Give us such a protective 
tariff as will make us independent of foreign 
countries in our ability to earn good wages, and 
we will agree to put up with such money as the 
other civilized nations, together with our own, 
call good. 

Farmers : And give us reciprocity of the 
genuine James G. Blaine brand ; this will make 
us feel more independent than we can possibly 
feel with nothing to do but sit on the fence and 
talk about what a great and glorious nation we 
are. 

The People : Four years ago you claimed 
that all our lack of absolute perfection was 
traceable to our protective-tariff policy; your 
gilded promises for better times were broken. 
You did not hesitate to advocate co-operation 
with foreign countries then, when it served your 
purpose to beguile voters ; you did not consider 
that we were in danger of losing the respect of 
foreign countries by declaring it to our advan- 
tage to frame our own independent tariff 
laws ; and the inconsistency of your position 
upon American independence then, and your 
position upon the same subject now, compels 



1 64 THE BOOMERANG 

us to view your patriotic effusions as merely the 
shrewd arguments of an attorney whose mind 
is capable of such contortions as the exigencies 
of his case require. 

Jester : 
" And be these juggling fiends no more believ'd, 

That palter with us in a double sense ; 

That keep the word of promise to our ear, 

And break it to our hope." 

Bryan : Honest differences of opinion have always 
existed, and ever will exist, as to the legislation best 
calculated to promote the public weal ; but, when it is 
seriously asserted that this nation must bow to the dic- 
tation of other nations and accept the policies which 
they insist upon, the right of self-government is assailed, 
and until that question is settled all other questions are 
insignificant. 

Wage-workers: Mr. Bryan, you make a 
"mountain of a mole hill." You and your 
party have already robbed us of lucrative em- 
ployment ; now you ask us again to be moved 
by mere sentiment that we may be guilty of 
still further self -impoverishment. We can make 
no more of your transparent appeals to patriot- 
ism than the desperate frantics of jealousy and 
ambition. 

Jester : 
" So full of artless jealousy is guilt, 
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt." 



THE BOOMERANG 1 65 

Bryan : Citizens of New York : I have travelled from 
the centre of the continent to the seaboard that I might, 
in the very beginning of the campaign, bring you greet- 
ing from the people of the West and South, and assure 
you that their desire is not to destroy but to build up. 

The People : We are not likely to allow 
your unscientific principles to build up another 
sectionalism such as the Democratic party did 
force upon us and which we were compelled to 
put down with the blood of an immense army 
of Union soldiers. 

Bryan : They invite you to accept the principles of 
a living faith rather than listen to those who preach the 
gospel of despair and advise endurance of the ills you 
have. 

Wage-workers : " Faith " is all we have 
ever realized from Democratic dogma ; we pre- 
fer " works." We do not expect to endure the 
ills we have, but we propose to find relief in the 
party which we know will serve us best ; the 
party which has always provided a living reality 
of prosperity, and has not attempted to beguile 
us with a " living faith " in some impracticable 
Utopia. 

Jester : " Hope deferred maketh the heart 
sick." 

Bryan : The advocates of free coinage believe that, 
in striving to secure the immediate restoration of bimet- 
allism, they are laboring in your behalf as well as in 
their own behalf. 



1 66 THE BOOMERANG 

The People: We had hoped, Mr. Bryan, 
that by this time you would be able to favor 
us with something more than a mere belief as 
to what free coinage of silver would do for us. 
The burden of proof rests on you, and yet you 
seem to be concluding without offering any 
positive proof. 

Bryan : A few of your people may prosper under 
present conditions, but the permanent welfare of New 
York rests upon the producers of wealth. This great 
city is built upon the commerce of the nation and must 
suffer if that commerce is impaired. You cannot sell 
unless the people have money with which to buy, and 
they cannot obtain the money with which to buy unless 
they are able to sell their products at remunerative 
prices. Production of wealth goes before the exchange 
of wealth ; those who create must secure a profit before 
they have anything to share with others. 

The People : Here you have spoken wisely ; 
no one can take exception to such sentiments. 
We do not pretend to disagree with all you say, 
but when we average you up, candor forces us 
to confess that aside from your personal belief, 
you have so far given us nothing upon which to 
base our hope. We do not claim that you are 
all wrong in what you say, but the main pur- 
pose of your argument, sandwiched between pa- 
triotic effusions, when once reached, proves 
tasteless, fruitless, and hopeless to a people al- 



THE BOOMERANG \6j 

ready satiated with Democracy. Many things 
that you have said are right, but the substance 
of your doctrine is bitter and wrong. 

Jester : 
" Tis hard if all is false that I advance, 
A fool must now and then be right by chance." 

Bryan : You cannot afford to join the money-changers 
in supporting a financial policy which, by destroying the 
purchasing power of the products of toil, must in the 
end discourage the creation of wealth. 

The People : Judging from what you have 
said, we have concluded that the money-changers 
must be sincere in their belief that free silver 
would result in silver monometallism, and would 
prove generally and fearfully demoralizing and 
destructive ; for if they were not afraid of this, 
it stands to reason that their interests would lie 
with you and your free-silver doctrine, rather 
than with the advocates of the present financial 
system, because you claim that by the operation 
of the free coinage of silver there will constantly 
be a fluctuation between gold and silver. While 
we cannot understand by anything you have 
said that such fluctuation will be of any benefit 
to us as a people, yet it is easy for us to under- 
stand that if it did not destroy values it would 
be of material benefit to money-changers ; they 
are the people who make a profit on premiums 



1 68 THE BOOMERANG 

in money, and this oscillating fluctuation process 
of yours would be a perpetual harvest to them 
if it work as you say it will. 

For these reasons we give them credit for 
sincerity when they advocate a continuation of 
the best money system known to civilization. 

Bryan : I ask, I expect, your co-operation. It is true 
that a few of your financiers would fashion a new figure 
— a figure representing Columbia, her hands bound fast 
with fetters of gold and her face turned to the East, ap- 
pealing for assistance to those who live beyond the sea 
— but this figure can never express your idea of this 
nation. You will rather turn for inspiration to the he- 
roic statue which guards the entrance to your city — a 
statue as patriotic in conception as it is colossal in pro- 
portions. It was the gracious gift of a sister Republic, 
and stands upon a pedestal which was built by the 
American people. That figure — Liberty Enlightening 
the World — is emblematic of the mission of our nation 
among the nations of the earth. With a Government 
which derives its powers from the consent of the gov- 
erned, secures to all the people freedom of conscience, 
freedom of thought, and freedom of speech, guarantees 
equal rights to all, and promises special privileges to 
none, the United States should be an example in all 
that is good, and the leading spirit in every movement 
which has for its object the uplifting of the human race. 

Uncle Sam : Young man, if this were not so 
serious a question I should regard your metaphor 
as highly ludicrous. That Columbia is ill I can- 



THE BOOMERANG 1 69 

not deny, and I am not feeling very well myself ; 
but let us see wherein you are right and wherein 
you are wrong. 

Columbia does stand with her hands bound 
fast, and her sad, anxious face turned toward the 
East. So far you are right ; but look closely. 
Her hands are not bound in fetters of gold ; they 
are clasped in an ugly vise, taken from the idle 
workshop of America and fastened by the cruel 
hands of Democratic tariff reform, and the look 
upon her face does not indicate that she is ap- 
pealing for assistance, but it shows an earnest, 
humble, sorrowful regret at the folly of her 
people in yielding up to the Eastern manu- 
facturers their own means of support. Mingled 
with this look is the evidence of a strong and 
prayerful determination that she will exercise 
her kindly and gentle offices to induce her peo- 
ple to avail themselves of the opportunity now 
before them of repossessing the American 
franchise to do their own work, support their 
own families, and gladden the hearts of the 
farmers among them by purchasing their prod- 
ucts. 

The Statue of Liberty is an appropriate em- 
blem of the peace and concord of international 
interest, and it can have a fitting place at the 
entrance of our nation only so long as the good 



170 THE BOOMERANG 

sense of our people shall sustain our nation in 
the first class of civilization ; but should we 
yield to a financial condition which would re- 
duce us to the level of Mexico and China, then 
it would be fitting that the Statue of Liberty- 
should hide herself in darkness and crumble to 
everlasting dust. 

As for myself, four years ago my head was 
almost turned with the prosperity of my people, 
and I was induced to believe that my exhila- 
ration was a disease. I now understand that it 
was hysteria ; there wasn't anything the matter, 
but I thought I would take something for a 
change. A Democratic physician came along 
and prescribed free trade and class legislation ; 
I didn't know what effect it would have, but I 
said " here goes anyway ; " another Democratic 
doctor now admits that the Democratic pre- 
scription of four years ago was wrong, but 
claims he can cure me now when I really have 
something the matter with me. 

Jester : We have all heard of the doctor 
who confessed he could not cure a case of poi- 
soning, but said he would give the patient 
something to throw him into fits, and he was 
death on fits. 

Uncle Sam : My family physician for over 
thirty years had been of the Republican 



THE BOOMERANG *7 l 

school, and I cannot now understand why I 
changed. 

Now the situation is simply this : Both phy- 
sicians are ready to serve me ; the Democratic 
physician made me worse ; medicine proffered 
now by the Republican physician was food for 
me before. I am sure it will do me good. Do 
I need to state what my preference is at this 
time ? 

The People : Now that you have finished, 
Mr. Bryan, we will again cheer you by com- 
mending what you last said, but we are forced 
by self-interest, by reasonable conservatism, 
by logic, and by weight of testimony, to 
conclude that the risk involved in "arraying 
ourselves under your banner" would be too 
great ; we would rather have protection and 
prosperity than promise and poverty. It is 
more pleasing to us to have oil on the wheels of 
our factories than on the tongues of our orators. 
We do not expect any reward by magic ; we 
want the opportunity to earn a just reward by 
work. We believe that America will exert a 
greater influence toward the uplifting of the hu- 
man race if she remains a nation of the highest 
class, than she could if she took a step back- 
ward to the position of the nations of a lower 
class. 



172 THE BOOMERANG 

We believe in the law of supply and demand, 
but we do not believe that this law can be set 
aside by magic power. The days of priestcraft 
rulership have passed. It is not enough that a 
hypnotic wiseacre shall set himself up as our 
deliverer, and expect us to follow him blindly, 
leaving the results entirely to him ; the claimant 
for our franchise must prove the soundness of 
his doctrine. The Roman haruspex could di- 
rect the actions of citizens and statesmen by the 
feigned result of the examination of the entrails 
of fowls. Astrologers were supreme in their 
power over men by their knowledge of the 
movements and relations of planets. It was 
not necessary then that the people should un- 
derstand the processes by which the results were 
reached. These they must not question. The 
results themselves were all that could claim 
their attention. The voice of the oracle, 
whether in command, in warning, or in promise, 
was the final and inexorable law. 

But witchcraft, hoodooism, astrology, legerde- 
main, palmistry, and all other forms of barbaric 
superstition, have but a small place in the polit- 
ical and social actions of our civilization. We 
have been besieged by so many changes, which 
in the name of reform would have a strong ten- 
dency to deform society, that we have gotten 



THE BOOMERANG !?$ 

past the stage where people believe that just 
any kind of change means advancement. It is 
true that our heads were turned by the glitter- 
ing prospects of the Democratic millennium four 
years ago, but it may well be assured that more 
than four years must have elapsed before we 
shall again be curious enough to try a mere the- 
ory, which at best can be called but specula- 
tion. 

The law of free trade and the abrogation of 
reciprocity treaties have benefited labor only by 
enforcing it to a long vacation; they have 
brought somnolent peace and quiet to the man- 
ufacturing towns only by stopping the noise of 
their machinery ; they have stopped the flow of 
money through the channels of American enter- 
prise, and now the instigators of these laws seek 
to convince us that these channels are dried up 
because there is no money ; but this theory has 
done more — it has demoralized and lowered the 
standard of American citizenship by teaching 
proud men that they could support their fam- 
ilies upon half-time work and scant pay, where- 
as they formerly felt a pride in giving their 
families all of the necessities and an increasing 
amount of luxury. 

Now the same party has different but no less 
ambitious leaders; it is shorn of its best and 



174 THE BOOMERANG 

wisest elements; its remnant, bereft of the dis- 
membered better part, is augmented by the 
accretion of populistic, communistic, socialistic, 
and anarchistic elements, which are, for shame, 
worse than the bad part remaining in the orig- 
inal Democratic party. Thus decked with the 
variegated plumage of disappointed hope, 
broken promises, and sordid greed, the old 
organ, with a sadly changed organism, points 
out the very misery which it has brought upon 
us as a reason why we should continue to sup- 
port it. It comes to us again, and again pre- 
sents a theory which promises perpetual joy 
for labor, but which would, alas! if successful, 
prove more baneful than the fatal realization of 
the dazzling promises of the same party four 
years ago. 

There is absolutely no condition of paralyzed 
industry, timidity of capital, nor dearth of em- 
ployment, so vehemently ascribed by you to the 
present financial system, but what is traceable 
to Democratic misunderstanding and misuse of 
the tariff question in its bearings upon American 
institutions; and it is scarcely less than an in- 
sult to our intelligence that you should come 
here, and, without logic, precedent, or sound 
reasoning, attempt to shift the responsibility 
for our distress upon the party which advocates 



THE BOOMERANG \J$ 

the only theory giving positive promise of re- 
lief. 

Republican Party: While we must, and 
will, discuss the money question, and while we 
welcome to our ranks every Democrat whose 
respectability precludes his longer affiliation 
with the Democratic party, yet we will not re- 
cede from our traditional policy of a protective 
tariff until such wholesome federal laws are on 
the statute books as will insure employment 
alike of capital and labor in America, and a 
return of such prosperous times as will enable 
both the Government and the individual to 
pay debts instead of being forced unwillingly to 
make debts. 

Your effort, by the blare of bugles and the 
dazzle of calcium lights, and the recital of gob- 
lin stories to deflect attention from the valid, 
legitimate, and real issue of the present cam- 
paign, will be looked back upon by succeeding 
generations as perhaps the best developed freak 
of American politics since the costly error of the 
Southern Confederacy. But as the Rebellion, 
though vilely troublesome, had to be dealt with 
in earnest, regardless of the sense and wisdom of 
its instigators, so must we now deal with the 
free-silver misconception ; and as the survivors 
of that rebellion thanked the Republican party 



176 THE BOOMERANG 

for crushing their wholesale treason, and with it 
the institution of absolute slavery, so will the 
coming generations express their gratitude that 
the same Republican party at this juncture shall 
have guarded the citadel of American progress 
against the attack of a semi-barbaric institution, 
which would have resulted in that which to the 
American mind is akin to slavery ; namely, an 
enforced competition with the pauper labor of 
monarch-ridden nations. 

The People : To quote your own well- 
chosen words, Mr. Bryan, you " may rest as- 
sured that no language, however violent, no 
invectives, however vehement," will cause us to 
lose sight of the heroic and almost spotless 
record of the grand old Republican party. Af- 
ter seeing the Democratic party weaken and 
almost destroy our nation by its effort to sustain 
its institution of free ivork from i860 to 1865, 
then by free trade rob us of half our work and 
half our pay in 1893, we cannot brook with idle 
indifference the effort of the same Democratic 
party in 1896 to rob us of one-half of our already 
reduced wages, by free silver. 

You have stabbed the body of labor ; you 
shall not, while your hands are still reeking with 
your victim's blood, administer another blow 
under a pretence that you are now offering help ; 






THE BOOMERANG 177 

nor should you be deceived in thinking that the 
weakened condition of our labor will prevent it 
from recognizing the Republican party as its 
friend and identifying the Democratic party as 
its guilty enemy. The wage-workers know that 
free trade and not our financial system is at 
fault for the trouble, and we all of one accord 
recognize tariff as the issue. 

Therefore, free silver can no more force itself 
as the permanent and main subject of discussion 
than a demented disturber of a deliberative body 
can effectually change the course and action of 
that body; or the noisy tambourines of the 
Salvation Army supplant the intellectual, rea- 
soning sermons of a Spurgeon or a Beecher. 

The sound, sensible people will give your 
craze a passing thought, and will then turn their 
attention to the issue involved. Do not mistake 
the curiosity of the multitudes for conviction to 
your cause. 

The American people are a curious people; 
any strange doctrine will command their atten- 
tion, but the fact that they will go for miles to 
see a pretender who announces that he is Christ 
returned to earth, is no reason for concluding 
that they believe his claim. A large assem- 
blage of people witnessing the barbaric so- 
called sacred dance of maddened Indians does 



178 THE BOOMERANG 

not give evidence that these rites are to be adopt- 
ed into the religious ceremonies of the specta- 
tors. 

We feel that the adoption of free silver by us 
would bring no reward nor consolation except 
the questionable benefit which posterity might 
derive from our bad example ; but believing as 
we do that our good example will be more 
beneficent, we must part company with you 
and your free-silverism. 

Professional Workers : We would be un- 
worthy of the trust reposed in us if we did not 
advise our supporters to hold fast to their pres- 
ent good system of finance rather than take a 
chance at making it better with the fearful al- 
ternative of making it worse. If, Mr. Bryan, 
you had succeeded in proving that the water be- 
low the dangerous falls, incident to a change of 
our financial system, is just as good for the ship 
of state as the water above the falls (where she 
is now sailing), you would still have before you 
the task of proving that the passage from the 
present body of water through the falls to the 
body of water below would not result in a com- 
plete destruction of the noble ship. 

We can see nothing to invite such a journey ; 
all it promises is panic and poverty, wreck and 
ruin, waste and want, stupidity and starvation. 



THE BOOMERANG 179 

Why should we not raise our voices against such 
a prospect ? 

Farmers : We are not given much to " rain- 
bow-chasing," and our choice is the Republican 
party, which offers no chance to get " something 
for nothing," does not try to deceive us into be- 
lieving we can receive the fruits of toil without 
toiling, and does not undertake to hypnotize us 
with illogical logic. 

WAGE- WORKERS : No " tale of hidden treas- 
ure" can beguile us from our daily work, pro- 
vided our fellows will all join us in restoring to 
power the Republican party, which we believe 
will restore to us the work to do. From our 
earliest childhood we have been taught that 
anything " as good as gold " is about the best 
there is, and if we can be placed back to our 
condition of plenty of work, as it existed before 
1893, we will not complain of the kind of money 
we receive as long as it is " as good as gold." 

The People : The Republican party asks 
our support and promises us a return of pros- 
perity ; they have always kept their promises; 
the Democratic party asks our support and tells 
us there is a chance of better times ; they have 
always broken their promises. Even if there 
were a chance that Democratic success would 
mean more to us than Republican success, we 



l80 THE BOOMERANG 

are not in a condition just now to take the 
chance ; the risk is too great. It involves the 
jeopardy of all our hope and most of our wages 
for four years. 

You are the all-wise, the all-powerful leader 
of the Democratic party. We assured you in 
the beginning of this symposium that the bur- 
den of proof rested upon you. We gave you 
every opportunity to prove the wisdom, the ex- 
pediency, and the safety of your theory. You 
have offered nothing akin to proof. You have 
given us your belief and your conviction ; and 
you have attempted to do the rest by abuse and 
by arraying one class against another. We as- 
sured you that such doctrine would not convince 
us. We wanted proof. Proof you have not 
given ; hence, we assume that your position is 
indefensible. 

Therefore, we all cheerfully cast our lots with 
the Republican party and shall cast our votes 
for " McKinley and Prosperity." 



ADVERTISEMENTS 



THE BOOMERANG 

OR 

BRYAN'S SPEECH 

with the wind KNOCKED OUT 



A dialogue, including the Full Text of Bryan's Famous 
Madison Square Garden Speech, together with com- 
plete answers to each Argument by various Signifi- 
cant Characters. By James S. Barcus, author of 
" Science of Selling." 

The above is the title, and comprehensive description, 
of a book which is claiming exceptional attention. The 
large, promiscuous mass of matter — good and bad — writ- 
ten upon the subject of Free Silver, is almost bewildering 
rather than clearly enlightening to the busy man. 

" The Boomerang " has cleared away the rubbish by 
condensing and popularizing the whole argument on the 
Sound Money side, taking Bryan's speech for the whole 
argument on the Free Silver side, thus enabling every 
voter for the outlay of 

A half dollar of money \ to sum up the whole 
and >• matter and come to an 

A half day of time ) intelligent decision. 

The dialogue is fascinating from beginning to end — 
nothing dry, nothing tedious : it is the subject of finance 
simplified and clarified. The Jester, one of the characters 



THE BOOMERANG, OR BRYAN S SPEECH 

of the play, keeps the reader delighted with his wit and 
timely quotations. 

The manuscript has been submitted to Hon. Robt. P. 
Porter, Ex-Commissioner of the Census, and Hon. Chas. 
H. Grosvenor, Congressman from Ohio, whose opinions 
follow : 

Mv Dear Mr. Barcus: 

I have read "The Boomerang" from beginning to end, and am de- 
delighted with it. For a popular representation of the issues of the 
day it cannot be excelled. You have pricked everyone of the Popo- 
Democratic bubbles, and your book should be widely circulated. It is 
a complete answer to Bryan. I congratulate you on the unique ar- 
rangement. Faithfully yours, 

Robert P. Porter. 

I have been especially favored by having an opportunity to read 
the manuscript of " The Boomerang, or Bryan's Speech with the 
Wind Knocked Out," by Mr. Barcus. It is a unique symposium 
and discussion of the speech referred to by the representatives of all 
the great classes of our people. It is an admirable and unanswerable 
reply and expose of the great mass of fallacies in the speech, platform, 
and history of the Demo-Populistic candidate. Its widespread publi- 
cation would do immense good at this time, and would be a great aid 
to the movement now being pushed to defeat Bryan and rescue the 
country from the threatened grasp of blatant demagogues and mistaken 
followers of bad leaders. I cannot too strongly commend it to the men 
of the country who put above party the honor, integrity, and prosper- 
ity of the whole country. Yours truly, 
' C. H. Grosvenor. 

Our facilities for manufacturing this most desirable 
volume are unlimited, and orders will be filled promptly 
by mail or express, prepaid to any part of the United 
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Make all requests, with remittance of 50 cents, to 

J. S. BARCUS & CO., Publishers 

109-111 Fifth Avenue 
New York 



THE UNIVERSITY OF 
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THE UNIVERSITY OF LITERATURE 

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"\ I 7E TAKE an enthusiastic pleasure in announc- 
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THE PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION 

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a 

Science of Selling 

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Author of " The Boomerang " 

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